After over 30 hours of prep (But who’s counting? I am.) I’m starting in on the polishing. I’m starting with F7 Nuvite, a rather coarse polish from Vintage Trailer Supply here in Montpelier. I’ll run a finer polish later if and when I finish this set of sessions, which will likely be 20-25 hours. The weather, hot and muggy, is not conducive to long periods of work. So I sit down inside with iced coffee and write about it.
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| Here’s how the front looked at the start – lots of oxidation from the peeled clearcoat. |
Polishing involves smearing very small strips of polish on an area and using a slow-speed polisher to allow the particles in the F7 to strip off a minute layer of aluminum. You let the electric polisher do the work but it still takes a lot of energy to control it.
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| Building arm strength controlling polisher. It looks cooler out than it was – 80 degrees with high humidity. |
It is a messy process – lots of small black bits of polish and I always wear a mask – even though it is tough in the heat. I decided to keep the initial session on the top front panel and will perhaps tackle another section this evening. If you are inclined to polish an Airstrteam or an airplane, Steve from VTS has a nice primer you can download here.
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| The polished area looks very bright, with swirl marks from the coarse polish. So far, so good. |
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