Polishing my 76

rollingbubel · 08-28-2009, 12:57 PM

I was excited to start this project earlier this week.

However after only two to three few hour stints my arm is about to fall off and I wish I could live with an old oxidized trailer.

She is starting to shine up real nice however it appears that the scratch marks are going to be a problem. the polishing seems to accentuate these horrible scuffs. The previous owner must have taken this thing four wheeling through a thorn patch. Anyone have any solutions to working these scratches out? Also can you pop off the airstream letters? They are a monster to polish around. I also must admit that the neighbors have taken us off the picnic list for parking this thing in our driveway!!!! I guess the neighbors have no love for aluminum. Imaging that!!!

Lumatic · 08-28-2009, 01:31 PM

Keep at it, the scratches will eventually go away. Make sure you start with a coarser compound and successively use finer. What are you using as a polisher. I use a 1000-3000 rpm buffer then use a Cyclo for the final polishing. You don't want to take the letters off as the only ways to do so is to remove the inner end cap or break them off. But if you do, you can rearrange the letters to say I ARE SMART.

pauluptime · 09-12-2009, 10:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lumatic

Keep at it, the scratches will eventually go away. Make sure you start with a coarser compound and successively use finer. What are you using as a polisher. I use a 1000-3000 rpm buffer then use a Cyclo for the final polishing. You don't want to take the letters off as the only ways to do so is to remove the inner end cap or break them off. But if you do, you can rearrange the letters to say I ARE SMART.

You mean like this?

rollingbubel · 08-28-2009, 01:50 PM

I am doing the whole nuvite thing. I have started with the f-7. Should I continue to use the f-7 until the scratches come out? It does a great job removing the heavy oxidization. However the scratches seem to be accentuated. I am also using the dewalt at 1500 rpm's. I don't think at this rate I will get to the cyclo until this winter.

FreshAir · 08-28-2009, 03:36 PM

I had/have stone chip pits on the front corners of our coach. I wet sanded them out as much as I could then went with the nuvite and polisher. The wet sanding really helped.

redhawkerII · 10-29-2009, 11:21 PM

....I ARE SMART....Thats a HOOT! HA.....! There are lots of products out there that will 'chew' into the metal for cosmetic polishing. I use Gravel in a bottle by 3M. It's affordable, the price will not take you to the poor house and I highly recommend your giving it a try as your base compound. You will see you will believe....Ha Ha! 'I ARE SMART'!