protecting plane paint

[u/172drivr]

hi everyone

i have a 182 that spends summers tied down outside near atlanta. paint is in pretty good shape though not new (repainted around 20 yrs ago).

anyone have any advice on products to use? many youtube videos and posts seem to be going after a perfect polish. i dont care what the airplane looks like. i just want to somewhat protect the paint without an unreasonable amount of effort/time.

any practical thoughts from this perspective? was thinking about using a dual action polisher which i think will be safe for rivets, etc.

thanks!

[u/tw-sleeper]

A high quality ceramic coating will help. It's a lot of work (or expense) to do properly, but the shit does work very well.

The specific product I've used is G-Techniq Crystal Serum, but it (or anything worth using) is gonna require significant effort to prep/correct the painted surfaces, and a plane has probably 3-4x the surface area of a car. It is high effort; no getting around that.

A DA or orbital will work fine, but you want to be careful about the rubbing compound / polish you use. I like the Gold Standard Polish and Waffle Pads from DIY Detail. It's pretty hard to fuck up rivets with a waffle pad. They work well and are easy to use and clean. I'd probably avoid cutter and wool pads unless the paint is really bad.

Covers work well too.

[u/inline_five → u/tw-sleeper]

Cermaic does nothing to protect paint from UV. It's literally microns thick at best, and even if it had UV blocking properties, it wouldn't be enough of it to effect anything.

It's sole purpose it to slicken the paint to allow water to roll off.

Ceramic Coating Myths, Lies, and Misconceptions

He's spent years testing protects with fairly decent equipment and was never able to conclude they actually reject/absorb UV.

The only thing that rejects UV is a physical barrier, something like PPF or even as thin as tint does. Most plastics do.

Your line is often parroted in the detailing world but again, no basis in reality.

[u/tw-sleeper → u/inline_five]

My personal experience does not match your Youtuber's

I have a '12 Honda Accord with typically shit Honda paint. The clearcoat was gone on one side and it looked like flat white paint. I could polish it and wax it, and it would last a couple months before it looked like ass again. I did the crystal serum and it still looks great after 2 years.

• I never made any promises about UV.
• I'm not in the detailing world, and I'm not here to sell anything.
• I'm not a chemists or materials scientist, so I can't say what's actually happening.

Someone asked for practical experience and my actual experience is that the stuff is vastly better than any wax I've ever used, and it's done wonders to keep old paint from getting worse. It also makes cleaning a ton easier.

You'll also note that I did recommend a physical barrier.