Stripping paint to polish the skins.

[Rally]

I have a buddy that has a older aircraft with shady paint. He wants to know what the best way to strip the aircraft is, and then he wants to polish the aircraft. What is the best way to do this? I believe in the past I have used Zep stripper then scotch bride pads along with a plastic scaper. I would imagine if you will polish the aircraft that you have to severely limit scatches and penetrating the alclad. Also I understand that you must really make sure all the stripper is out/off of the aircraft.

 

[GravityHater]

Talk about self imposed pain of a lifetime!
Also who knows what lurks beneath the paint. It may be unfeasable to actually get all the skins to an acceptable appearance due to damage. Could be 5lbs of bondo under there.
If getting it into polished condition doesn't kill him, then the day to day upkeep might!

 

[flyboycpa]

Polishing an aircraft is a pain in the you-know-what. The first Globe Swift I flew was in need of polishing bad. The guy that owned it said that I could fly it all I wanted so long as I polished it. As a college kid, I thought that was a good deal until I started actually doing the deed. That is why I have a painted Swift.

Anyway, stripping an aircraft is even more of a pain in the you-know-what. I'll have to check with one of my other Swift buddies to see what materials he used. I don't think he used Scotchbrite pads anywhere. As was said in the previous post, you don't want scratches or damage to the Alclad layer. He recently stripped a completely-painted Swift and polished out the majority of it. He said it was tedious and that he'd never do it again.

I have some before, during, and after pics and I'll try to attach them.

regards,
fb

 

[clickclickboom]

Here are two solutions

The cheap option: Scuff mask paint

The expensive option : Strip, Wash, Etch/Alodine, Mask, Paint

The insane option: Strip Polish, Polish, Polish, Polish, Fly plane sits out in sun for the day light after noon sprinkle dries on plane, plane takes on nice cloudy look, spend 6 hours polishing, repeat

Seriously my plane has polished props and spinners and I literally polish them after every flight to keep them nice