We once again absconded the cold Midwest to bring the shine to Houston TX.
2007 Cirrus SR22 Turbo (Gen3)
We started on this Silver Gen 3 Cirrus SR22 Turbo. It was relatively clean to begin with, so after a quick wash and belly degrease we started the paint correction to maximize gloss.
Although the aircraft looked pretty good to begin with, we knew this 10 year old airplane had some more gloss potential. Silver is a difficult color to photograph for before and afters. If you look very closely in the reflection, you see a diagonal line running with the lower right having a clearer reflection.
Here is an arrow pointing to the before and after line, just to make things easier.
The oxidation removal is more obvious on the GPS Receiver.
Once the entire aircraft was polished to maximize gloss, we removed any polishing oils that could be concealing paint defects and performed one more inspection prior to coating.
2014 Tecnam Astore LSA
Once we were satisfied with getting this 10 year old Cirrus as glossy as possible, we focused our attention on this gorgeous little LSA Tecnam Astore.
Unlike the Cirrus’s smooth composite skin, the Tecnam had many rivets that had paint missing. This is pretty common on aircraft so we were ready to touch them up with a dab of paint before hand.
The gorgeous red on this aircraft had a lot of scratches that were keeping the paint from being as glossy as possible (left half). On the right side you can see the scratches being removed. The slight haze that remains is removed in a subsequent jeweling step to get the paint as reflective and glossy as possible.
Like the Cirrus, The Tecnam too got a ceramic coating. Not only does this further amplify the gloss, it helps maintain the shine.
By keeping the plane cleaner, longer, and making washing easier, we minimize the amount of time the owner has to wash the plane, reducing opportunities for wash-induced marring and dulling.
Here is a fly-around both of these planes. Amazing gloss.