Any polished Mooneys out there?

[Wildhorsesracing]

34 minutes ago, RLCarter said:

Nice bicycle..........jk

LOL! Mongoose Beast from WalMart

Makes a great bike to get around the airport.

[Hank]

Oooooohhh!! <jealous!!>

[aviatoreb]

8 hours ago, Wildhorsesracing said:

The Polished Mooney has to share my hangar with my latest acquisition... 

Nice bicycle!

[Wildhorsesracing]

Well it's been over a year and a half since I polished her and finally decided she was looking fairly dull.  You can see the difference in the one picture of before and after polishing.

Time for a repolish - makes me feel like the Karate Kid! LOL!

[Raptor05121]

awesome job.

how is your daughters progress? is she flying for fun or going after other ratings?

[Wildhorsesracing]

7 hours ago, Raptor05121 said:

awesome job.

how is your daughters progress? is she flying for fun or going after other ratings?

She is flying for fun, she recently took on a new job and it involves tremendous amounts of travel so she is limited for time to upgrade her ratings.

[mccdeuce]

I'm just seeing this thread - sorry if it has been passed already but my experience below.

had a polished Grumman. When she was shiny she got lots of complements. NuVite graded polishes do the actual best work. (Your one pic looks like a can of nuvite)

 I use a concrete drill with a polishing pad for heavy oxidation and have a dual head orbiter for the fine finish. (Wax on / was off) 

[Evan Amaya]

Here is another polished Mooney to add to the list.  Just finished a three month annual/avionics upgrade.  1968 M20F turbo normalized.

[hmasing]

Just starting the process of thinking through a repaint (original 1968 paint on mine!), and going polished with some bad-ass flames seems like a path I'd like to consider... but it looks like too much work to maintain.

Thanks for all the great reading on this thread!

[xcrmckenna]

I’ve missed this thread. Love the polished look!!!!


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[jaylw314]

I've been thinking of doing the polished look on my (sometime in the distant future) RV-10 project.  I figured I'd polish most of the exposed metal, and then lay vinyl trim over the outboard wing sections and fiberglass areas.  That way I can do the initial polishing without having to do any masking or take precautions at the bordering sections...

[lamont337]

37 minutes ago, jaylw314 said:

I've been thinking of doing the polished look on my (sometime in the distant future) RV-10 project.  I figured I'd polish most of the exposed metal, and then lay vinyl trim over the outboard wing sections and fiberglass areas.  That way I can do the initial polishing without having to do any masking or take precautions at the bordering sections...

Had a friend who both polished and brushed his RV7. Looks pretty cool when the sun catches it just right. He has since painted it though. 

[jaylw314]

12 minutes ago, lamont337 said:

Had a friend who both polished and brushed his RV7. Looks pretty cool when the sun catches it just right. He has since painted it though. 

Seriously, he painted it?  That's an awesome look, egads that looked like a lot of work!

[EricJ]

45 minutes ago, jaylw314 said:

Seriously, he painted it?  That's an awesome look, egads that looked like a lot of work!

That's probably why he painted it. 

Talked to a guy at a fuel pump in Wyoming with a beautiful polished Cessna 140.   He said it was a lot of work to keep it looking decent and seemed a bit daunted by it.

[Prior owner]

I had a Luscombe that was polished... I used to buy Mother’s Mag and Aluminum polish by the quart directly from the factory because I was going through so much of it. Keeping  it looking spiffy totally wore me  out. the shine would last about 3 weeks in Florida. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad in a place like Phoenix..?

 

[MikeOH]

Likely a silly question...

After polish, would shooting a clear coat over it preserve the look for a long time without upkeep?

[jaylw314]

5 hours ago, MikeOH said:

Likely a silly question...

After polish, would shooting a clear coat over it preserve the look for a long time without upkeep?

It's not brilliant.  Think of how much time is spent prepping metal for paint by scuffing it.  Now think of how well clearcoat will stick to polished metal 

I vaguely remember some people who tried it and also had issues with yellowing and discoloration when clearcoat is applied directly to metal.  I also shudder at the thought of how you would repair any sections where the clearcoat chipped or sections came off.

One thing I didn't think about until now was the possibility of using clear vinyl overlay, like they do with car clear-bras.  That might work...

[GloryWing1]

Correct, ClearCoat and polish don't have UV protection by pigments for the resin. Will "burn" out, fade or delaminate in the case of clearcoats. Hangaring helps both equally but polish looses out from corrosion through the thin film, just not much there to keep moisture and salts from moving to the surface. Clearcoat not much better. Both will need lots for cleaning and polishing to refresh the moisture repelling. Good corrosion inhibiting primer is the workhorse for low maintenance.

That all sounds very scientific, but the magic of a polished airplane is the newly polished section reflecting the honest work of your hands back at you.

I should know...

[Seymour]

On 12/4/2015 at 3:28 PM, Bob_Belville said:

Well, this thread has morphed a little but I was pleased to see the '64 M20E in the ramp at KMQY today. Registration has it as a Cocoa Florida plane.

 

Found the Owner three and a half years later!   Nice M20E,  @GloryWing1

[Canadian Gal]

Absolutely amazing planes!

 

Truly a labor of love!

[glbtrottr]

Dang. Why not some alumi prep, alodine, corlar and Imron? Sooo muuuuch wooooorkkk but so nice looking


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[Canadian Gal]

While looking at a vans rv14 picture earlier, I thought about this thread.

One 14 wasn't painted, just polished, and it was beautiful...mostly.

Then you get to the front and its a cheap looking hunk of ugly plastic.

If I ever build a 14, I will have a tin basher make me a nice aluminum cowling for it, and toss the plastic in the trash can.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Canadian Gal said:

While looking at a vans rv14 picture earlier, I thought about this thread.

One 14 wasn't painted, just polished, and it was beautiful...mostly.

Then you get to the front and its a cheap looking hunk of ugly plastic.

If I ever build a 14, I will have a tin basher make me a nice aluminum cowling for it, and toss the plastic in the trash can.

You better start working overtime and saving, if you don’t like fibreglass. There’s the engine cowl, the wheel pants, the gear leg fairings, the gear intersection fairings, the wing tips, the rudder tips, the vertical fin tip and the elevator tips.

I’ll look for it at Oshkosh, what year do you expect it to there?

[EricJ]

12 hours ago, Canadian Gal said:

While looking at a vans rv14 picture earlier, I thought about this thread.

One 14 wasn't painted, just polished, and it was beautiful...mostly.

Then you get to the front and its a cheap looking hunk of ugly plastic.

If I ever build a 14, I will have a tin basher make me a nice aluminum cowling for it, and toss the plastic in the trash can.

You definitely don't want a Mooney newer than an F model, then.   They're all fiberglass cowls from the J model on.

[Pinecone]

I think she was saying that if she had a polished airplane, it would need to be mostly Al, not fiberglass.

The tips and wheel pants could be nicely painted as a accent.  The cowl would be different.