So I have been waxing the 340 a bit at a time. (It’s a LOT of plane).
Pick a section, apply wax by hand, let it set up, polish it off.,…do another section. I figure the plane has enough surface area to be 6 small cars, say 4 SUV’s. 2.7 full size vans.
Sadly, my arms and shoulders can’t do that much before the arthritis starts hurting.
So I bought a cordless car polisher. It isn’t great at applying the wax, but that isn’t the hard part. Removing the wax and polishing is the hard part, and the polisher does a decent job.
Highly recommended.
Polishing the paint on the 340 is kinda a futile job, like polishing a turd….But hey, it’s a SHINY turd. Looks great from 20 feet away. The paint is, after all, more than 20 years old.
(If you don’t get the title reference, look up “Karate Kid”). .
Ah yes, wax on, wax off… Not for us old farts…
Use to have a 34′ sail boat. Did the hand thing once. Makita makes a great wax buffer/polisher. Not cheap but can’t be beat.
If you want a job done right, do it yourself. I once paid for a wash and wax. The result was it looked great. But the belly and undersides of the wings were left undone.
That’s extra, he said. After much back and forth I was no closer to getting all of which I paid for and he no closer to getting his ‘extra’.
Still, my elbows and shoulders cry out when I see shiney planes. This especially for those in polished aluminum.
Yeah, there’s a guy down the taxiway that has a mostly polished 172. He’s always working on it.
Another dude has a JEWELED straight tail 182. Beautiful airplane but WAY too much work for me….
Oh, and you don’t get broken antennas. Or control surfaces jerked against their stops.
At the drop zone where I used to skydive they polished the DC3. Beautiful. It took them quite a while.
I don’t have a plane, but I have an RV. I’ve learned to love Meguiar’s Hybrid Ceramic Spray Wax. Sprays on, wipes off easy. Lasts a decent time.
I use a similar product on the leading edges to prevent bugs from sticking. It abrades though, so I apply every few flight hours.
Good stuff
At the boat plant there is a couple of guys that buff the boats going out for shipping, they buff 10+ boats everyday & most of the time one handed. Grab a Milwaukee buffer & give that a try. They ain’t much good for anything else but they can buff.