How much Nuvite to buy?

[Bryan Cotton]

Sorry if this is a repeat question - I looked but could not find. I am running low on F9. How much will I need? How about the other grades?

[Rynoth]

All I know is at least 1lb of F9 at a minimum. The aft fuselage sides, turtledeck, stabilators and rudder used about 80% of my 1/2lb jar. I have a 1/2lb of C but haven't used any yet.

[Bryan Cotton]

I must be wildly inefficient. Stabilators and one pass on the tailcone sides and I have used 90% of my 1/2 lb of F9.

[Rynoth]

How much shine are you trying to get with F9? I'm mostly concentrating on rivet holes and harder to reach edges before riveting. I expect to do another F9 pass on the riveted parts before moving on to C grade. The more I think about it, I should have just bought 2 lbs and had some to spare. Buying 1/2lb cans piecemeal is already adding up in cost. Not sure what all sizes you can find it.

[MichaelFarley56]

Bryan,

Have you watched Kerry Fores's video about Nuvite polishing on the factory website? It helped me a lot when I first started polishing. I believe the basic recommendation would be one light "fingerprint" of polish for every 6" X 6" area to start. If you've used 1/2 lb already you may be using too much (the stuff really seems to work well on a "less is more" approach). I use the Harbor Freight el-cheapo orbital polisher, and 1400-1500 rpm seems to be a good speed with light to medium pressure on the skins. I tried running it a lot faster but I don't think it works as well.

Of course, this also depends on how many passes you're doing per area. I just started polishing the tops of my new wing skins and after 3 passes of F9 things are looking good, but I may do 1 or 2 more passes before going onto the C grade.



It's just my opinion but to really get a nice, highly polished finish, expect 4-6 passes of F9, 2-3 of C, and 1-2 of S.

For someone starting off and wanting to polish the whole airplane, I recommend 2 lbs F9, 1 lb C, and 1/2 lb S. Just my two cents though!!

[sonex892]

I must be wildly inefficient. Stabilators and one pass on the tailcone sides and I have used 90% of my 1/2 lb of F9.

Bryan
It sounds like you're putting too much on. I was using too much initially and ran out of my first 1/2 lb tub in no time.

All up I did 7 passes of F9, from memory I think I used about 2lbs of F9 and 1/2 lb of C grade. It wasn't till I bought a cyclo last year that I started bothering with the S grade

Two problems with applying too much. One is it cuts better with less polish rather than too much, and two it tends to get thrown all over the place. I think half of my first tub of polish was getting flung off the plane and onto the floor and myself.

In addition to Kerry Fores video, check out a video of polishing an Airstream using Nuvite on the Perfect Polish website.
http://www.perfectpolish.com/index.html

Steve 892

[Bryan Cotton]

Thanks guys! We will try less Nuvite.