The International Cessna^® 170 Association

I remember a time back in about '55 or '56, at Mather AFB, when someone who was never going to have to polish anything decided we should shine up a Convair T-29C so that the base CO would stand out when he went someplace. Somebody came up with about fifty cans of a polishing medium that looked like cotton waste and came in a can of about one gallon size with a tight cover. I had 66 airplanes with 11 in a flight with about 2.3 men per airplane plus a chief for each flight. Every morning at roll call in the hangar we had each man take a chunk of that polishing waste and pick out a spot about 16 inches square and polish it. When he finished it he put the waste back in the flight chiefs can to be reused the next day. It's amazing how few days it takes about 150 men to polish a Convair 240. The airplane really came out looking great, but it was kind of a pain in the butt to keep it that way.

Rusty-
After all that polishing you're going to need a new username!

We found while polishing the DC-3 that after you polish a small area if you spray the area with the red bottle WashWaxAll Degreaser and wipe it with a yellow Costco micro fiber towel before it dries, the shine will jump out at you. The WashWaxAll and micro fiber towel takes all of the aluminum oxide (black stuff) out from around the rivit heads and from small scratches and dents in the metal. (By the way, the Costco yellow micro fiber towels are very cheap, a big bundle is $12 or so)

170C wrote:Rusty, I'll bet you can get a bunch of takers if you furnish free beer. Now some might be picky on the brand, but I'll drink Miller, Coors, etc. Just let me know time & place

I'll bring the beer if I can watch Frank work.

From what I've seen, watching Frank work polishing Rusty's (beautifully already-polished) airplane will be somewhat b o r i n g ....

Let's have a party at my house, where I'll supply all the St Pauli Girl beer we can consume while we all watch him fluff up MY airplane (which has a 12 year "patina" on it.)

With a plane as nice as Rusty's, I don't think he would want me to be doing any polishing on it Besides, if I worked on it the engine might develop oil leaks However Richard it sounds like you have a lot of experience polishing airplanes so if you will volunteer to help polish Rusty's, I'll volunteer to hand you all of that beer you are bringing while your polishing Rusty, with friends like this you may want to keep your hangar locked

I’m late getting into this thread but wanted to add a comment about polishing around painted trim. I use 3m for compounding followed by Rolite (in the past) or now Nuvite.
Last year while cleaning up an acid spill in my battery box I forgot to cover my wheel pants and the acid/baking soda solution splattered on the pants. While polishing out the resultant corrosion I polished right through my painted trim stripe with the 3m compound. I’m not sure how the 3m compares to Nuvite but according to the Nuvite website the courser grades could do some damage to paint if it is not protected with tape.

Just a word of caution.

170C wrote:With a plane as nice as Rusty's, I don't think he would want me to be doing any polishing on it Besides, if I worked on it the engine might develop oil leaks However Richard it sounds like you have a lot of experience polishing airplanes so if you will volunteer to help polish Rusty's, I'll volunteer to hand you all of that beer you are bringing while your polishing Rusty, with friends like this you may want to keep your hangar locked

Frank, you are correct, I have quite a lot of time polishing a DC-3 (mostly from the windows up) so instead of gaining more experience myself, I think it would be much more beneficial if I supervised others with less experience while they get hands-on time perfecting their polishing skills. Besides that, it's hard to polish and drink beer at the same time.

I think George has a great idea. We could all go to his place and get his plane polished while he supplies beer, steaks, a bunkhouse, and pig hunting at night.

Now you are talking Richard

OK, you guys better look out....I'm almost buying into this...

(The Cyclo is borrowed from Ol'Gar, I bought the T-shirt material years ago, a can of Rolite came with the airplane, convention is in July....)

"convention is in July....) "

Heck, why wait 'till July?? With winter coming to the northern tier of States, wouldn't Texas be a nice winter getaway for all the polishing wannabe's?
I'll bring an extra Cyclo polisher with me, along with the case or two of beer I'll need for my supervisorial duties!!

Sounds like there would be plenty of folks bringing beer, supervising, serving beer, etc. Best get solid commitments on who is going to operate the buffers (do the polishing) Texas in the winter would be a good time. Most other times its too hot And, this will likely be a SLOW job since its on a RED airplane

Inline with the subject of the thread..
Not exactly a compliment from the tower but still a funny.

This was an early morning a few weeks ago. I fly into Leesburg airport to skip the commute some days(we have an office near the airport) which takes me pretty close to Dulles International.


"Cessna 2481D, Dulles Approach Are you a Cardinal?"
"Approach, 2481D: Negative. I'm a Cessna 170"
"Is that a retract?"
"Negative"
...long pause
"81D, Approach: how similar is a 170 to a 172?"
"Pretty much the same but the wheels are in the right place"
...another pause.
"81D rgr that explains what we're seeing."

...they thought my nose gear was stuck

David...you should send that in to AvWeb. (Be sure to say something nice, like Member David Ross, 170 Assoc'n Member, reports: yada yda yda... They thought my main gear was stuck...)

is Nuvite polish really the best?
i used to use a polish that came in a orange can
sorry i haven't been online lately
but been working on my Fort Sill L4
check it out on the J3-cub.com forum under L4's
dave

Nuvite is good. So is Rolite.
This is a Ford/Chevy argument. Any quality aluminum polish which offers graduated abrasive-levels should work fine. The Nuvite folks have caught the public imagination thru good advertising and good distributor network...and superb product support with compatible accessories marketed alongside their primary product. But it has no particular advantage over most other quality aircraft polishes. IMO