Sunday, June 7, 2009

Steady as she goes . . .

We've made steady, albeit slow, progress on the Captain the last couple weeks. The paint stripping and polishing has continued at a fine pace and I've managed to work on a few other odds and ends at the same time.

Since we started polishing, I've been spending about an hour to an hour-and-a-half polishing most evenings after the girls go to bed. Fortunately, this is the time of year in Seattle when it stays light out pretty late (and there is a street light conveniently located directly above and in front of the trailer) . I can easily work till 10:00, but usually try to stop around 9:30 so I don't annoy too many of our neighbors with the noise. I decided to start on the front end-cap since that is the face that most of our neighbors have to endure every day. It's amazing how much more friendly they've become as they've watched the trailer begin to shine. I've found that I often spend a quarter of my allotted work time chatting with curious neighbors.

Last weekend, we got a huge boost with help from my brother-in-law, Andy. Andy just graduated last year from a small college in Eugene, Oregon that as of late thinks it is a football school. Despite his poor taste in water fowl, we really appreciate his help with the Captain. He put in several hours last Saturday and managed to finish the first cut of polishing with Nuvite F7 on a large portion of the street side roof. We also finished most of the front end cap, and while Andy worked on the street side roof, I worked on the curb side roof between the awning rail and the top of the windows. Although she looks a whole lot better than when we started, I'm still learning this whole polishing process and I'm not entirely convinced we have finished removing the clear coat. While I thought the paint was the more difficult of the two coatings to remove, at least with the paint, you know when it is gone. A clear coat by its very nature is somewhat invisible. On some areas where I thought we had removed all the clear coat, you can still see what might be described as a "blotchy sunburn" effect in the Aluminum. The websites with advise on stripping clear coats from Airstreams in preparation for polishing say this indicates the pressence of a clear coat.

There were areas of the trailer where it seemed like several passes with the polishing compound resulted in limited progress and still had a bit of the "blotchy sunburn." Saturday night we sprayed another coat of the Removall to the clear coated areas of the trailer, as well as the rear end cap, and some areas of the roof that still had paint. Sunday morning we pressured washed again and spent some time compounding the front before Andy had to head back to Oregon.

Most of the trailer has now seen three coats of the Removall, so the clear coat should be gone. However, I'm not an expert with the Airless sprayer, and I've probably gone light on some areas. So, I may need to apply another coat of the Removall to some areas. I've also bought a can of Klean Strip, a much more aggressive stripper. You know, the really nasty, toxic stuff, that burns your skin the instant it touches you - don't worry Mom, I'm being careful, wearing eye protection and a respirator and I'm only using this to spot check some stubborn areas of paint on the roof around the vents. I will probably also test that on some clear coated areas to see if it removes any additional clear coat.

I'm also not sure I have started with the best grade of polisher for the condition of the aluminum. Nuvite F7 is supposed to be a heavy cut polish used for removing corrosion or heavy oxidation. The Captain does not appear to have significant oxidation or corrosion, so it may just be that this polish was the wrong choice to start. I've also read several posts on Airforums that recommend Nuvite G6 for the first cut of polishing. Ryan switched to G6 after spending several days working with F9 (a very heavy cut polish). He found the G6 made much better progress at a faster pace, so I've ordered a pound of G6. I've also read about several other polishing products and methods and I will probably try some of those as we go forward.

Nevertheless, when I step back a few feet, it really is beginning to look cool and we have just started.

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