Economical Paint Restoration

davidm767

davidm767

Pre-takeoff checklist
Joined
Jun 18, 2012
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115
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Aventura, FL
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Davidm767
I have a 40 year old paint job, and although every other penny is being saved towards a new paint job I thought I'd take a crack on giving my aircraft a few more years (although some "Krylon" touchups were necessary to keep the bare worn through metal sealed from the elements).

I've tried numerous off the shelf waxes (trying to keep costs down). None worked at all, not even close. An former maintenance school instructor of mine had recommended me to check out Maguiars polishes since he has experienced some success.

I took it a step more after reading multiple reviews on Amazon.com on their variety of products. I ended up with Meguiars Ultra Cut, Meguiars Ultra Polish, and Meguiars Gold wax.

I took a dual action polisher to apply a small bit of UC...never more than 2 sqft because that stuff dries WAY FAST and is impossible to buff out without a liquid to reconstitute the UC....so keep it small and manageable. Make sure the surface is CLEAN of the UC prior to proceeding if not some pigment will leach and dry on top of the old surface, causing problems. After the UC (which knocks out oxidation and some paint contaminants) I hit it with the ultimate polish, being aware that it also dries fast (manageable). Now the surface looked really good! Finally I finished with the Gold Wax, which gave the surface some extra shine and protects the surface.

I was VERY impressed by these products! I will definitely recommend these to every owner I meet. Granted the paint is substantially thinner over the years so the pigments did not come completely back original (noticed at some point the blue had flake in the paint however it likely worn out years ago).

A couple of hours later (okay many hours later), I am finally happy about my paint after a year and a half of ownership. I still have a lot of work to go to paint the trim pieces, and still have awhile to save for a full paint job, but I am stoked at the results.
 

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Yeap! That is what I use too. I start with Meguiars 105 ultra-cut compound, follow that with 205 ultra- polish compound, and then Meguiars hi-tech yellow wax 26. Use a good polisher (porter cable 7424XP) or you are just wasting your time. If the paint exhibits a lot of contamination, may want to precede all of this by claying the paint system first. These steps can make old paint look 100 percent better. You can find all these products at your local auto-parts store, or hit Amazon.


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Yeah, i used clay on my infiniti, including the glass. the paint was literally as smooth as glass, and when i was done polishing and waxing had that deep wet look to it. If you think your car/plane are clean, try running the backside of a fingernail over it.. you'll feel all kinds of embedded dirt, etc in the paint. the clay pulls that out.
 
There are two distinct paint imperfections - stuff that is stuck on top of it and scratches or cracks that are embedded in it. Clay and lighter weight polish is designed to remove the crud on the outside but won't do anything for the embedded stuff. To get to that you have to cut into the paint and this is difficult on airplanes because of things like rivet heats and such. So you have to be very careful because with a power buffer and a mildly aggressive polish you can cut ALL the paint off of a button head rivet in nothing flat.:yikes:
 
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