Earthstar Forums

Hi Gary
I was just looking at your pictures of your polished wing. It looks sooooo nice !!! I polish mine as well but it is in no way as shiney as yours. I have to admit I am slowing down with my enthusiasm in polishing, especially the under side. I wish there was some sort of coating that would let it shine that way forever. But I guess elbo grease is the price you have to pay for that kind of shine.
Fred

Hi, Fred. I hate to polish, but had some blemishes on my leading edge I wanted to get rid of. After polishing, I sprayed on some Lemon Pledge. I don't know if this will keep it shiny longer, but it does appear to keep the bugs and dust from sticking as bad. You can go back later and feel the difference where you applied the wax.

I use Pledge on the windshield as well.

We'll see if it helps in the long run.

I polished the underside of my old Odyssey, I did it once with the wing on and another time with it off. If you're using a polisher, then build yourself a table, lay on your back as to face the wing. You can then brace your elbows against your side. It's a dirty and tiresome job, that's for sure. I wear a full face respirator. Once the wing is polished it's really easy to maintain that shine.

I do some powdercoating and have done chrome on aluminum, it matched the polished aluminum wing really well. I'm not sure how it would hold up on the wing but it's very difficult to wire brush off aluminum. I would have to think 5 lbs or less would do a whole wing. I don't have one but it could be baked with a heat lamp used with powdercoating.

I'll upload a picture showing the engine standoff that I recently coated chrome, these are aluminum.

Hi Gary
I just saw the pictures you posted. That tail looks like a trophy winner at Oshkosh. Nice. I wish I hadn't seen the chrome powder coating picture... its giving me ideas and I know what that means..money.
Thanks
Fred

Powder coating DIY is really easy, you would just need a curing lamp as the
wing is so large. I think taping and coating 1/4 of the wing at a time
would be doable with the tape seam on the underside of the leading edge.
Now you have me thinking too, I will coat a 1x1' piece of aluminum and
weigh it before and after, then we can calculate the weight of the entire
wing.

My only thoughts on this is that I think powder coating is brittle and would crack under flexing.
Fred

We'll find out, I will see how much the panel can flex back and forth after I powdercoat it.

Hi
Powder coating the leading edge of the wing will melt the foam ribs under
the skin. You need 450 F for 20 min to powder coat a wing skin using a lamp.
Chrome powder coat needs a clear coat over the top to keep it from
tarnishing. If it could be done with out rueining the underlying structure or
warping the skins due to uneven heating. I still would not recommend it
because it wouldn't give you the look you want, and it would add about 20 lbs. If
you want to protect the wing by covering it up with something than I
recommend painting it by cleaning it with an acid bath several times and when
the rinse water does not bead rinse it several more times to neutralize all
the acid than do an alidyne posses than paint with PTI urethane pant from
Aircraft Spruce. This is how we do it when the owner wands to paint the wing,
I rather leave it shiny aluminum, its lighter by 10 to 20 lbs and a lot
cheaper and the time you spend polishing is small relative to the time to
prepare and paint. And the plain fly's faster with the smooth aluminum too.
Happy Flying
Mark Beierle Earthstar Aircraft


In a message dated 3/30/2013 10:37:00 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
gjcarter34@gmail.com writes:




Powder coating DIY is really easy, you would just need a curing lamp as
the wing is so large. I think taping and coating 1/4 of the wing at a time
would be doable with the tape seam on the underside of the leading edge. Now
you have me thinking too, I will coat a 1x1' piece of aluminum and weigh
it before and after, then we can calculate the weight of the entire wing.


On Sat, Mar 30, 2013 at 9:32 AM, Fred <_fgayford@silomail.com_
(mailto:fgayford@silomail.com) > wrote:





Hi Gary
I just saw the pictures you posted. That tail looks like a trophy winner
at Oshkosh. Nice. I wish I hadn't seen the chrome powder coating picture...
its giving me ideas and I know what that means..money.
Thanks
Fred

--- In _Earthstar_Aircraft@yahoogroups.com_
(mailto:Earthstar_Aircraft@yahoogroups.com) , "gjcarter34" <gjcarter34@...> wrote:
>
> I polished the underside of my old Odyssey, I did it once with the wing
on and another time with it off. If you're using a polisher, then build
yourself a table, lay on your back as to face the wing. You can then brace
your elbows against your side. It's a dirty and tiresome job, that's for sure.
I wear a full face respirator. Once the wing is polished it's really easy
to maintain that shine.
>
> I do some powdercoating and have done chrome on aluminum, it matched the
polished aluminum wing really well. I'm not sure how it would hold up on
the wing but it's very difficult to wire brush off aluminum. I would have to
think 5 lbs or less would do a whole wing. I don't have one but it could
be baked with a heat lamp used with powdercoating.
>
> I'll upload a picture showing the engine standoff that I recently coated
chrome, these are aluminum.
>
>
> --- In _Earthstar_Aircraft@yahoogroups.com_
(mailto:Earthstar_Aircraft@yahoogroups.com) , "Fred" <fgayford@> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Gary
> > I was just looking at your pictures of your polished wing. It looks
sooooo nice !!! I polish mine as well but it is in no way as shiney as yours.
I have to admit I am slowing down with my enthusiasm in polishing,
especially the under side. I wish there was some sort of coating that would let it
shine that way forever. But I guess elbo grease is the price you have to
pay for that kind of shine.
> > Fred
> >
>

Mark is right.
I guess I'll suck it up and keep polishing. I don't think I will paint because I like the look of aluminium. There is one big advantage in polishing the wing. You get to spend a lot of time on every square inch of the wing to see if you have any problems. Its like a 20 hr preflight inspection of your flying surfaces and that can't be bad.

Fred

I’m in on this one too. I’m going to just keep polishing too, as at this point being, on the plane for years, I’m not in the mood to remove it, and besides, it looks cool polished like some of the big guys.

kb