If there is a clear coat you must remove it before you polish.
Our trailer had a clear coat on it. This needed to be removed before we sealed the seams and polished the trailer! Clear coat became an option on Airstreams sometime in the early 1960's.
Most of the trailer striped well with Citra Strip (available at most hardware stores). This is a gentler striper and if you are careful you may not even need to wear gloves although it is recommended. One part of the trailer had a different type of clear coat applied sometime. It would not strip at all with the Citra strip and we had to use a stronger striper (Aircraft remover by Klean-Strip in an aerosol can . It was quick and easy and less messy than the liquid type. Walmart carries this in the Auto section.). We did a small area at a time. Follow the stripper directions. Make sure to rinse it well. We used paint thinner to rinse it and followed later with water. Also make sure to protect any plastic (the stripper "melts" plastic) or anything you do not want stripped!
There is a new product by Napier that is supposed to be a great stripper, environmentally friendly and not so toxic to use. Aircraft Spruce and Sherman Williams Automotive paint stores carry it (see other links). I have not used this product so I can only tell you that others have been raving about it.
Seal the seams (if needed) (See Sources for info on what to use for sealant.)
If you strip the trailer you will probably also need to seal the seams because the stripper may soften the sealant.
It is also very important to clean the seam area as well as possible before sealing. Make sure not to use anything sharp that will scratch the trailer when you clean the seams. We used a sharpened piece of Phenolic. Others have suggested Popsicle sticks. We used some Bon Ami to scrub with and Denatured Alcohol to wash out the Bon Ami. You want to clean the seams before you do ANY polishing. If the seam sealant is loose it will fall out when you polish, get in your pads and scratch!
There are two options about when to seal. We used option 2 but afterwards thought option 1 might have been a better way.
Option #1
If you polish the area right around the seams (about 6"
on each side) you can remove any corrosion before you seal the seams. You will
then need to clean off the polish with solvent and then seal the seams. Cleaning
off the polish and sealing the seams is a bit messy - If you do it after you are
finished polishing you will have to re-polish a lot of area. If you just polish
right around where you are going to seal then when you polish you can simply hit
that small area again to bring it to the full luster.
Option #2
Seal the seams before you polish anything.
 | The cyclo does not seem to damage the sealant - it just turns it black. |
| If you are going to use the compounder and want to
get right next to the seam you can mask off the seam or above the windows
with BLUE masking tape. That will allow you to polish right next to the seam
and not damage the sealant. |
| One more thought on Sealing:
Here in a picture with the front skirt ("banana wraps") removed. You can see how the plywood floor is not even covered by the top skin. It is easier now to see why so many Airstreams have floor rot. Make sure to get this area sealed! We put aluminum tape over the skirt (under the top strip) to help the water not get to the plywood. If you have these wraps make sure to get the front and back skirt area sealed! |
 |
What polishing method are you going to use
Do some research! - Watch the videos - Talk
to people who have done it - Look at peoples polished trailers and/or
Airplanes - Search the web etc. etc. etc.
After doing some research we choose to polish with the Cyclo Polisher with 100% Cotton Sweatshirt material over the polisher. I purchased the Swift polishing Video as a Christmas Present. We watched the Swift Video two or three times before starting the polish job.
I recommend the Swift video with reservation. If you have not seen a demonstration it is a nice way to start planning how you are going to do the project. I guess for around $30.00 I would like more but if you get at least one good procedure from it - it is worth it. (I got several good procedures from it). It will give you a great overview to the polish job. You do not have to invest a great deal of money for equipment with these techniques.
If you purchase the Video from Perfect Polish Tom and feel that you don't need to keep it - he will send you some cotton sweatshirt material in exchange for the returned video! This material is really the "secret" to making polishing easier and less messy!
Perfect Polish Tom explains this method very well on his website (choose polishing techniques from the frame on the left. Use your browsers back button to return here).
On the rest of these pages I will add some additional polishing hints especially for airstreams. This basic method was developed by the Swift Airplane Association so it is known as the "Swift Method". I choose this method because:
| We already had a Cyclo Polisher |
| My husband had done most of the trailer restoration and I (Shirley) planned to do most of the polishing and I needed a machine that I could handle. I had previous experience with the Cyclo from doing some polishing on our airplane so I was comfortable that I could use it. |
| There was good information available on using this method. |
| I had seen several airplanes polished with this method and they were beautiful. |
| There is a local person who offered to show us how it is done! |
| Polishing with a drum polisher sounds very interesting but I could not find much information on it and the equipment needed seemed quite expensive for just one or two polishing jobs. |
Before you start to polish
| Blow out with compressed air any joints, the awning rail, edges, inside window frames - any place where dirt could hide and vibrate out. |
| Wash the Trailer again For this wash, before you polish, washing with water and a little Dawn dishwashing soap seems to be what works well. Dawn leaves less spots. Make sure to use a brush (toothbrush or a larger brush with similar bristles) in the pits to get off all the dirt lodged in the pits. These will come out when you polish and scratch. Open the windows and clean inside the frames too. We did not do this and some dirt fell out and we had some deep scratches to polish out. | ||||
| Remove all the light covers and anything else you can remove
(vents?) so you can polish close to them and not crack them. Note: If you remove any non-aluminum (copper, stainless steel . . . ) name plates put Mylar between the skin and the name plate before you rivet it back on. This will prevent the dissimilar metal corrosion. Here is our taillight . . . It is too bad we did not take before pictures but you can still see the pits in the polished surface . . .
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| When you get ready to polish near any name plates or plastic tape it off with blue masking tape. You don't want to polish the blue off around the Airstream name tag etc. |
