Before Pic of Argosy to be polished...

[froggies]

Here it is! 1977 Argosy Minuet, you can see where PO started to polish, at this point I am going to back up and try compounding again, even though trailer looks as though it has been sanded with various techniques previously. It is covered with lots of swirls and straight sanding marks. I am mostly afraid I might chew thru the mysterious "Alclad" layer.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. I know there is tons of ways to polish, but especially if you have polished your Argosy, please let me know what you found helpful. I realize the aluminum panels might be of different qualities.

My plan is to paint the steel end caps and the roof with silver automotive paint, so if anyone has a product to suggest for that, I would appreciate it. Thanks!

[Janet H]

Try contacting member "3Ms75argosy" He (marc) is also polishing an argosy and is a little further along. He may have some useful advice for you...
Check out this thread to follow his progress.

[overlander63]

The swirled scratches are from when the aluminum was prepared for painting. It has to be sanded so the paint will adhere to the aluminum. Buffing with a light compound should remove the scratches. There should be no alclad layer on the panels, although I am not 100% sure of this.
As far as painting the end caps, I would suggest waiting until you have the trailer polished as far as you want to go with it, and then find a silver paint that will most closely match the polished aluminum color.
Good luck with it.

[jaiman]

"The swirled scratches are from when the aluminum was prepared for painting. It has to be sanded so the paint will adhere to the aluminum."

Not really the case as the Aluminum is coated as a coil. A coil of Aluminum is fed along in a large sheet the width is 3 or 4 feet but can be very long 500 feet. The aluminum coil goes through a 5 or 7 stage pretreat which cleans etchs and pretreats the aluminum to prepare for coating. The clear coat is applied usually with a reverse roller coat application which deposits the required clear coat. The coil continues through an oven which cures the coating. The the coil is wound back up and shipped to whichever end user in this case AS to cut and form the coil into useable sized sheets. Imagine the way a newspaper is printed.

[overlander63]

Originally Posted by jaiman

"The swirled scratches are from when the aluminum was prepared for painting. It has to be sanded so the paint will adhere to the aluminum."

Not really the case as the Aluminum is coated as a coil. A coil of Aluminum is fed along in a large sheet the width is 3 or 4 feet but can be very long 500 feet. The aluminum coil goes through a 5 or 7 stage pretreat which cleans etchs and pretreats the aluminum to prepare for coating. The clear coat is applied usually with a reverse roller coat application which deposits the required clear coat. The coil continues through an oven which cures the coating. The the coil is wound back up and shipped to whichever end user in this case AS to cut and form the coil into useable sized sheets. Imagine the way a newspaper is printed.

Okay, I guess I should have elaborated further, and stated that since Airstream exterior aluminum is originally prepped to be shiny without painting, it needs to be sanded so that paint will stick to it. Argosy aluminum panels were purportedly blemished Airstream panels, and as such they were originally shiny, and had to have that shininess removed, or the whole trailer would look like the galvanized steel end caps. But, I wanted to be brief and to the point...

[jaiman]

http://www.epa.gov/ttn/chief/ap42/ch04/final/c4s02_2k.pdf#search='coil%20coating'

[froggies]

Thanks for the replies...I was wondering whether to paint first, or shine first, you are right, if I wait I can match up the paint better. Though I have been sorta tempted to just paint the whole thing silver...but for some reason which I am not really aware of I think I will try polishing.... I think it has something to do with the whole shiny aluminum airstream fever that I have suffered from so long...if I totally fail and botch this, I COULD repaint it, it is an Argosy after all. Hopefully I won't fail!

"light compound"???? I was thinking of starting with the Nuvite C or F7, think that will be too much grit for what I already have going on here? Which light compound would you advise to start with?

Thanks for the info too on coiling and on Marc's thread!

[overlander63]

Originally Posted by froggies

Thanks for the replies...I was wondering whether to paint first, or shine first, you are right, if I wait I can match up the paint better. Though I have been sorta tempted to just paint the whole thing silver...but for some reason which I am not really aware of I think I will try polishing.... I think it has something to do with the whole shiny aluminum airstream fever that I have suffered from so long...if I totally fail and botch this, I COULD repaint it, it is an Argosy after all. Hopefully I won't fail!

"light compound"???? I was thinking of starting with the Nuvite C or F7, think that will be too much grit for what I already have going on here? Which light compound would you advise to start with?

Thanks for the info too on coiling and on Marc's thread!

I would start light, then progress to a heavier compound if needed. If you use too coarse formula compound, it could swirl even more, not a good thing. I started with this stuff, it seems to be just right. Available at Ace Hardware.

[froggies]

Thanks for being so specific! What kind of bonnet would you recommend with that? Do I go in circles or just go straight down with the polisher really slow? How many times should I go over same spot with this product? And what would you do next? Thanks a ton!

[overlander63]

Originally Posted by froggies

Thanks for being so specific! What kind of bonnet would you recommend with that? Do I go in circles or just go straight down with the polisher really slow? How many times should I go over same spot with this product? And what would you do next? Thanks a ton!

I used a readily-available 7" grinder-type buffer, with the pads that came with it. I made several more passes with it than I needed to, appearantly you use mineral spirits to remove the "black gook" that you will get on the surface. I went back and forth with the buffer, not around in a circle. I am also relatively new to the polishing scene, as I am also a former Argosy owner. Here is a photo I took of the first panel I polished with the product shown in my previous post. I think it came out pretty good:

[froggies]

Thank-you Terry!

[greg176]

If you decide to go with Nuvite I would suggest you start with F7 as you have some pretty good scratching there.I found it is better to start with F9 then follow up with F7.The swirl marks these make are very fine.Much less than you have there.
You have to compound till you remove all the cloudiness.The best way to see is to shine a white LED light on it at night.