The International Cessna^® 170 Association

95D came with the cleanest set of aluminum wheel pants I've ever seen. No cracks, dents, repairs, scratches...nada.
I have them off the plane (of course) and would like to polish them back to their glory.

How do you hold these suckers when the polisher takes two hands?!?

I'm thinking of bolting them up to a floor or bench mounted wood block at the backing plate and axle points to hold them still.
Anyone ever done this before? Photos or ideas of what worked and what didn't would be appreciated.
I'm having nightmares of the wheel catching an edge and wrecking the pants.

As the owner of a polished 170 without wheel pants I have a few sugestions. First send the wheelpants up to me and I will find an appropriate way to care for them. If that dosent interest you I would check out Nuvite Chemicals web site as they have a lot of good educational material there. Nuvite offers several different grades of polish which you will find very helpful. To polish just wheel pants the polisher that looks like a hand grinder is probably all you need. Just make sure that the polishing wheel is always turning away from any sharp edges. The finsh polishing could easily be done by hand. Good Luck Bill K

I've talked to the Nuvite guys as I need to polish the whole plane (Just bought a bunch of F7, C and S).
In fact, these pants will be for sale once I have them all polished up. They are WAY too nice and I'm not about to be the one to ding them up.

I've seen people actually polish by hand with a soft cloth (sweatshirt material) using Nuvite. Go for it!

Cessna never produced a polished airplane.

gahorn wrote:Cessna never produced a polished airplane.

So what?

gahorn wrote:Cessna never produced a polished airplane.

Cessna didn't use 60 year-old sheet metal to build airplanes either.

bagarre wrote:

gahorn wrote:Cessna never produced a polished airplane.

So what?

So George is just pointing out once again, that my, never been polished and never will, 170 could be more original than his.

That is the way I see it anyway.

Bruce Fenstermacher wrote:

bagarre wrote:

gahorn wrote:Cessna never produced a polished airplane.

So what?

So George is just pointing out once again, that my, never been polished and never will, 170 could be more original than his.

That is the way I see it anyway.

I don't recall seeing zinc chromate primer as an option for interior surfaces of airplanes either. I vote N146YS be in contention for "Best Custom 170B" at the next convention.

Ooooooh Boy Arish! What is a "Safe Flight Speed Control System" and how does it work? The listing from your early 50s sales brochure mentions a "Computer"!

Aryana wrote:I don't know but I want it John!

Maybe you can have one?

http://www.safeflight.com/products/aoa- ... ol-system/

jrenwick wrote:

Aryana wrote:I don't know but I want it John!

Maybe you can have one?

http://www.safeflight.com/products/aoa- ... ol-system/

Probably not for $415.00

johneeb wrote:Ooooooh Boy Arish! What is a "Safe Flight Speed Control System" and how does it work? The listing from your early 50s sales brochure mentions a "Computer"!

That's where they paint the airplane red so it's can't go fast enough to become unsafe.

Both polishers need two hands. First one is a disc polisher like you'd use on your car and the second one is a random orbital but still needs two hands.

Screwing the wheel pant to a board and making a wood tee to the axle bolt made it really easy to hold and manipulate in a vice (Thanks to Dan Wood for that advice)

Aryana wrote:Actually there was an option Ryan! Expensive at more than $400...but oh how I wish 44C had it done.

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Anyone have recommendations on the proper preparation for crow?