Aircraft Cleaning Advice? (Polished Aluminum Waiex)

[Rynoth]

I'm looking for methods to clean my (UN-painted, polished) aircraft of hangar dust. I don't have access to a hose, but can fill a bucket of water. Is there a particular type of soap that is preferred, something that rinses clean and won't pull all the grease from the piano hinges? I'm assuming that I want to use as little water as possible (basically a wet sponge or microfiber cloth) to avoid a lot of water deposits where I don't want them (and my hangar doesn't have a drain), but also want to make sure I'm not scratching into the polished aluminum with the dirt I'm removing.

I will followup the cleaning with Nuvite nuimage (dry cleaner and debugger). I know that I could just use a bunch of mineral spirits to clean the plane but am looking for a less messy solution to clean up all the dust first (it's pretty dirty.)

Any tips?

[Bryan Cotton]

Fly it?

[nwawingman]

Ryan,

I use bottles of drinking water from fridge or left over from last flight to clean bugs and dust off. I always use a soft micro fiber towel with wet then dry well with a synthetic drying towel from wal-mart. To add a little extra shine from time to time I will Purple Metal Polish on a random orbital buffer fro HF. For the major polish jobs I still stick with Nuvite. This has served me well.

[mike.smith]

I use some Dawn dishwashing liquid. But I use lots of water, so not an indoor job.

[Rynoth]

Thanks for the feedback. I ended up doing and initial pass with a bucket of water with a dash of car wash soap, large sponge and just doing single pass wipes with the sponge to get the bulk of the dust off. Followed with clean buckets of water and wet (wringed out) microfiber cloth, followed immediately by dry microfiber cloth. Results were very good, minus some water spots from hangar drip (plane sat longer than I care to admit.)

[DCASonex]

Also have a polished Sonex. Dust holds moisture from condensation which causes mild corrosion that dulls the finish. My solution was to make covers for the horizontal surfaces (fuselage, wings and tail) out of the low cost picnic table covers from Walmart, the ones with soft fussy underside. Taped together and shaped using duct tape, and secured in place with some elastic straps (duct tape does not contact the aluminum.) and a couple of very small (about 3/4" x 1-1/4") patches of the fussy side of Velcro tape stuck to the plane in inconspicuous places. Since mine is in a closed hangar, do not have to worry about wind gusts blowing cover off, but needs a sign. I am not a picnic table, Keep Off.

David A.

[Craig Hoskins]

I have used alcohol with a microfiber towel for small areas that need attention. And for larger area cleaning I have used Meguiars dry wash with microfiber towels and get good results.

[Bryan Cotton]

Time to revisit this old topic. My dust was really bad. I did a pass with the shop vac with the round brush attachment. It seemed to work ok. I really need to get some water on it too. If I was thinking, I would have pushed it outside while it was raining, then I could have dried it off inside. Too cold for that foolishness now.

[Rynoth]

Fly it?

=D

[Rynoth]

This was discussed in another thread but I'll add it here...
viewtopic.php?f=21&t=5591&p=43827&hilit=zephyr#p42701

Once the bulk of the dirt/dust has been removed (be it by water, vacuum or other method), Zephyr Pro-40 is now my go-to product for a quick cleaning and sprucing-up of polished aluminum. It's not a replacement for actual buffer-polishing (though it can also be used with a buffer with good results), applying it by hand is pretty easy and fast (faster than waxing a car), and does a great job of restoring the previous shine.