Waxing and polishing

Since winter is nearly ending and I'm doing final adjustments to my glider, I was wondering. Is it interesting to wax and polish it? I've seen a set of products he https://www.theaerodyne.com/gb/care-...ider-care.html

D-1339

I've used the Prist canopy cleaner and I don't like it. The Plexus product seems to be a better cleaner. I don't know about the other stuff.

My local composite shop mocks his dentist. "He does'nt really care, he's really glad to see you brush your teeth"

On Saturday, March 2, 2019 at 1:07:29 PM UTC-8, wrote:
I've used the Prist canopy cleaner and I don't like it. The Plexus product seems to be a better cleaner. I don't know about the other stuff.

My local composite shop mocks his dentist. "He does'nt really care, he's really glad to see you brush your teeth"

I have had the exact opposite experience. Prist windo clearner works great, Plexus leaves a film and can't be cleaned off.

I have had great luck with Plexus, I use either super clean or
brand new microfiber towels only for buffing it out.

If canopy is really dirty clean with pure water first
then use Plexus.

I hate dirty canopy's.

Would it be advised to do the entire glider or just wings/tail?

Senna have you heard about hard waxing? Using a rotary
buffing wheel and a block of hard wax to do the entire glider
minus the canopy.

Also good stuff is the 2 part WX Block and Seal
available from wings and wheels.

The Plexus is for the canopy only not the glider itself it
looks like this thread drifted.

Op zondag 3 maart 2019 15:30:26 UTC+1 schreef joesimmers:
Senna have you heard about hard waxing? Using a rotary
buffing wheel and a block of hard wax to do the entire glider
minus the canopy.

Also good stuff is the 2 part WX Block and Seal
available from wings and wheels.

The Plexus is for the canopy only not the glider itself it
looks like this thread drifted.

To be honest, never done it or had it done on a car or glider, I bought my DG 101 last year and want it to stay in great condition and stumbled upon that care kit with waxing and polishing products and thought it might be worth the effort

In general, a decent washing (I use a car specific wash, dish soap is usually harsh and tends to strip wax) and almost any car wax is better than nothing.
Better is once a year or so, a light sanding (say.....1500grit wet or higher) followed by a machine applied hard wax is more betterer......
Pretty much anything to help seal the surface is decent.
Granted, some wing profiles (PIK-20, SGS-1-35, etc.) don't really want wax since it causes water to bead which kills the L/D. Fly in rain, drop the gear......

On Sun, 03 Mar 2019 09:45:02 -0800, Senna Van den Bosch wrote:

To be honest, never done it or had it done on a car or glider, I bought
my DG 101 last year and want it to stay in great condition and stumbled
upon that care kit with waxing and polishing products and thought it
might be worth the effort

I, and other pilots at my club, used to use Mer car polish, but
apparently its now a non-starter because recently they've been adding
silicone to the mixture. The polish in blue containers did not use
silicone but the more recent polishes in black containers all include it
in their ingredient lists.

I've been told to never use silicone based polish because it is said to
make repairs to fibreglass or carbon structures very difficult or
impossible to repair.

In fact I remember reading that here, so it must be true!

OTOH I've not seen any publications that mention the effect of silicone
contamination on repairability. The only article on repairing FRP
structures I've seen, in a search I just carried out, that even mentions
contamination in any detail is:

https://compositesuk.co.uk/system/files/documents/
repairoffrpstructures.pdf

It has a short section about contamination (half a page in a 33 page PDF
document) that mentions "fuel, oil, hydraulic fluid, etc" and moisture,
but says nothing about the perils of silicone-based polishes.

The other 2-3 publications my search turned up that didn't turn out to be
pushing supplier's products either did not mention contamination at all,
or gave no details apart from describing how to sand through surface
finish.

So, what's the deal?

Are silicone-containing polishes etc to be shunned?

Can anybody recommend an FRP repair publication that gives any more
details about dealing with contamination than the one I quoted above?


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org

On 3/3/2019 12:08 PM, Martin Gregorie wrote:

Snip...

I've been told to never use silicone based polish because it is said to
make repairs to fibreglass or carbon structures very difficult or
impossible to repair.

In fact I remember reading that here, so it must be true!

OTOH I've not seen any publications that mention the effect of silicone
contamination on repairability. The only article on repairing FRP
structures I've seen, in a search I just carried out, that even mentions
contamination in any detail is:

https://compositesuk.co.uk/system/files/documents/
repairoffrpstructures.pdf

It has a short section about contamination (half a page in a 33 page PDF
document) that mentions "fuel, oil, hydraulic fluid, etc" and moisture, but
says nothing about the perils of silicone-based polishes.

The other 2-3 publications my search turned up that didn't turn out to be
pushing supplier's products either did not mention contamination at all, or
gave no details apart from describing how to sand through surface finish.

So, what's the deal?

Are silicone-containing polishes etc to be shunned?

Can anybody recommend an FRP repair publication that gives any more details
about dealing with contamination than the one I quoted above?

Lordy, it must be winter in the northern hemisphere!

Certainly there's no harm in avoiding 'silicone-ingrediented' waxes, but IMO
'commonly-held views' on the subject border on religious arguments in that
'proof of one's beliefs' is rarely part of the discussion.

So while we're polling, let's not forget including FRP repair shops' inputs.
My own direct shop-input querying-experience - *not* repairs, sardonic chuckle
- includes a mere 3 (4 counting a long-ago RAS post by JJ Sinclair), and, so
far, each puts "Silicone = Bad!" into the urban myth category. Further, who
can point me toward an accident report involving structural failure of a
repaired FRP glider, that has 'fingered' silicone as a contributing factor?

N.B. For the disputatiously-inclined, I am NOT recommending spraying every
accessible surface of your bird with silicone spray (a little common sense can
go a long way), but rather positing that 'fretting over its presence in wax,'
arguably falls into the urban-myth/anally-self-inflicted worry category.

YMMV, of course...

Bob - last night's low -1 deg F. here - W.

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