Nica
New member
- Oct 23, 2006
- 3,728
- 0
Special project
Well what can I say I love a challenge, a good friend and co-worker of mine asked me if I would be interested on detailing his airplane. I was thrilled at the opportunity/challenge that I was being offered to me and of course said yes. The airplane was completely covered in oxidization and required lots of TLC. With such an opportunity/challenge I though it would be a good idea to have a partner and share the experience. Well sneek was up for the task and was kind enough to help me out with such an opportunity. We were both so excited to detail a plane that we could not wait for Saturday to arrive. Well Saturday came and went and here is the process. By the way a huge thank you to my friend sneek for the wicked assistance on material research and well everything, thank you sneek, couldn’t have done it with out. Another thank you for our camera guy Steve, a good friend of mine was willing to come along and help out any way he cold so he was in charge of taking pictures plus other duties such as taping certain areas and most importantly team spirit.
Here is some info on the airplane (info provided by owner):
The airplane is a 1980 Cessna 172XP (R172K - model), the airplane has currently 1,175 hours of airtime since new (very low time).
Engine – Continental IO – 360KB 6 cyl. 195 HP; (210 HP with ISHAM conversion)
Radio's:
Nav / Com 1 Make: King; KX155
Nav / Com 2 Make: Cessna; RT385
Intercom 4 Place Make: Nat; Intervox
ADF / NDB Make: Cessna; 300
DME Make: King: KN64;
Audio Panel King KA134
Loran C Apollo 618
Transponder / Mode C Make: Cessna RT359A
Interior Process:
No interior done, just exterior.
Exterior Process
Engine bay:
Engine was not done either.
Wash:
The wash was done by the owner but sneek and I decided we should use the Optimum No Rinse to wipe down certain areas that required it (the entire plane).
Clay:
We were so exited that we actually for got to pack our clay bars, it would have helped but we just forgot it, shame because the clay would have helped tremendously. The surface of the plain was so oxidized and so rough the clay would have come in handy.
Polish
This is where things get very interesting, prior to Saturday sneek and I both re-searched on what to use on an airplane and sneek got great info from really good sources and it was suggested to use an all in one step. Something that would have great protection and some correction as well. So we tried out a few products and the best product/combo we could come out with was
Sneek with my Makita rotary – wool pads (Edge wool pads plus other wool pads and lots of them) – Meguiars #20 (lots of it too) – 1500rpm
Nica with the Metabo rotary – white foam pad (Lake country) – Meguiars #20 – 1500rpm
This was a tag team effort, the plain was split in half and off we went. Worked our way from the back to the front. The wings we tagged teamed them and man those wings are massive 30ft long if I’m not mistaken. Now the challenge with the plain (in general) is that when you think your done one surface you still have to do the other side like a 3d object, which made it for a long polish. In addition, the shape that the plain was in did not help. But sneek and I were both impressed with the results of #20 and we detailed the entire plain with #20, very good product.
Observations/comments:
Sneek and I had a blast detailing this airplane. The one thing sneek and I noticed is that the airplane would go through wool pads like crazy. It would chew the wool pads like bubble gum and spit the wool pads all worn down. Mind you the surface of the airplane was in rough shape and we removed lots of oxidation. The foam pad that I used had to be tossed to the garbage because it was torn, ripped saturated beyond cleaning. The other observation I made was that wool pads would sometimes leave certain things on the surface of the plain. I came in with the foam pads and it would remove what ever the wool pad would leave behind. Not sure if it was the extra heat the foam pads generate but it was very interesting to see the results. The final observation that I made was that the rivets on the airplane are actually not that bad, even though there are lots of them they actually don’t get in the way. Overall a very satisfying experience and a worthy challenge.
Now for pictures:
The plane it’s self and the area we worked in
Before:
Sorry about the lighting, it was inside and lighting was not ideal
After:
Before:
After:
Before:
After:
50/50 done by sneek
Tag team the wings
Hope you enjoy, it was quite the experiance. We had lots of fun and I personally enjoyed every second of it.
sneek, please feel free to jump in and point out anything I may have missed here.
.
I can understand that the plane likes to eat wool pads 
and thank you for the compliment, means alot to me.
I brought a 1/2 gallon + a 16oz bottle so for the record M20 is an awesome product for the job! It spread super thin, but it has the oils and the cut to restore a finish. 
