Polishing an Airstream Caravan

One of my customers just bought a '76 31-foot airstream caravan trailer. He wants me to polish the whole outside, since it is very heavily oxidized. i saw the trailer the other day, and i didn't take any pictures, but it's going to need some serious polishing!

the dillema is i have absolutely NO IDEA how to polish the whole trailer! i was figuring that i would have to use my rotary... maybe a LOT of steel wool? or just big wool pads on the rotary? also i would need probably about a gallon of metal polish... any suggestions?

can you guys recommend me some products that i should use on this trailer? anything helps!

i dont even know what to charge!?! i normally charge about $30-40 an hour, but this is going to take A LOT of hours...

:thumb:

in case you guys don't know what im talking about:

AIRSTREAM CARAVAN

 

My thoughts would be big wool pads to cover more area but i dont have any experience with huge vehicles like this....the best advice i could give you is to charge accordingly

I believe Optimum sells their new metal polish by the gallon...it is supposed to protect as well, that might save you some time

 

hmm, ill look into that, where can i buy it by the gallon? also, any suggestions on a price tag?

 

I say just use P21S Polishing Soap, and do it by hand.



Looking forward to it!

 

it needs A LOT more work than that! :shakehead:

it's going to be done towards the end of the summer

 

look into those drum polishers, the pneumatic ones. Contact Joe (Superior Shine in CA) He's on the Megs forum and Autopia. He has a lot of experience polishing HUGE planes (Aluminum ones)

Good luck. Looking forward to the detail.

 

I've done a race car trailer before and the one you linked looks like a beast! I'd follow TexasTB's advice and get a hold of Joe of Superior Shine. He'd probably have the best advice for you.

If it were me, I'd use a ton of wool pads and a ton of metal polish!

 

im on my phone right now but the last time I looked at autogeeks website I cudve sworn they had it by the gallon

 

Sweet mother that's big...I'm curious what route you'll take and most importantly I'm curious on the end results :thumb:

 

Any bets on how many hours this will take him? lol.....

My guess..... 34 hours

 

those things were Not polished from the factory but had a Brushed Matte finish....With that said to mirror polish that whole trailer properly would likely take 75-100 man hours and will need some wet sanding and steel wooling prior to polishing....ant to polish something that large drum polishers are the way to go....