We're in the final stages of renovating our '79 Excella and one of the last things on our list to do was the polishing. At first I was incredibly disheartened to learn that it's really expensive to have an AS polished... for our 31' AS quotes ranged from $30,000.00 (AS Dealer) to $10,000.00 (private company). Ouch. I knew it was going to be expensive (hence waiting 'til last to do it) but both of those price were more than I was willing to pay. I was going to have to get creative.
I called around to a few boat and car detailing places in town and most of them told me they don't do AS's, however one,
Automotive Vision, said they'd be willing to take a look and had experience polishing aluminum. By this point, I had already removed the old clearcoat and washed it myself. Without even looking at it they quoted $900 to polish the whole thing. "Uh... OK!" I thought, though clearly they had no idea what a big job this was going to be. "Why don't you come and take a look at it and then give me a quote" I said. They came out the next day and revised their quote to about $2,000 + supplies = about $2,300.00. Deal!
A week later they had completed Nuvite Grade F9 and then Nuvite Grade C over the whole trailer! And they came in right at the budget! It took 2 guys about 60 hours each.
I opted not to do the final Nuvite Grade S polish this time around (save time and money), which means not a true mirror finish, but it's soooo much better than it was I can hardly complain. Maybe next year we'll do the last step.
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