[VAC] Re: Polishing

[Toby Folwick <toby_folwick@xxxxxxxxx>]

here's what you're experience will be.  I'm going to
pretend to see into the future:

o O (you will buy only one level of nuvite, and a
rotary polisher of some sort.  you will begin
polishing and think it looks great! (because it will
at first) then you'll realize that you've got spider
webs all over your trailer, so you'll wipe them off
only to find there are HORRIBLE swirls)

sorry, I was possessed.

Here are my feelings.  NO MATTER how you decide to do
it, with abrasion polish (i.e. Rolite, or Nuvite) or
friction polish (i.e. green ox, or tripoli) you WILL
NEED at least 2 levels of polish, most times 3.  ONE
for compounding, and ONE for polishing.  the third one
is for coloring - you'll know what I mean when you get
there. on a 23 footer you'll need 2-4 pounds of the
compounding stuff alone.  from there on out you'll
probably only use one can of the other stuff.  you'll
be less than satisfied with your work if you think you
can do it for $250.  (think $600) it's just not
realistic.  save yourself some money, do it right the
first time, it'll be cheaper and will look nicer
(because you won't end up buying a couple different
polishers for the experiment.)

EITHER buy a cyclo, OR a random orbit polisher.
(3200-3800 RPM seems to be the magic number) OR buy a
drum buffer of some sort (Airmark is NOT the only
place to get these.)  THEN buy GOOD polish (2 or 3
levels of (coarseness?))

then WASH everything EVERYDAY before and after.

LASTLY - polishing happens in WARM temperatures.  if
it's below 55 degrees where you're polishing, chances
are it'll look like crap.  don't waste the polish.  it
ain't cheap.

seriously.  you can take my word for it, or do what I
did when someone gave me similar advice...  Testing
the theories was fun, but I just had some money
burning a hole in my pocket at the time.  and I still
haven't taken the trailer to a rally yet.  (dang.)

NEXT YEAR.

Toby