How much polish does it take to do a WWII bomber?

Respect to the guys that buffed that plane.

I'll stick with doing intake manifolds and sportbike wheels. They couldn't fit enough zeroes on the check to convince me to tackle something that big.

 

What a gorgeous piece of machinery.

 

Wow Wow Wow. What a job, but what a result.

 

I love the old war planes, Great to see a shining example.

 

Thats Sweet. . That Just Gleams.. Nice job. I know the feeling of holding those electric polishers up to the bottoms of the Wings and Underneath the Bellies.. I had to get a Corsair F4U and a P51 Mustang in 1987 ready for there Air show debuts.

I dont miss it..

 

That is incredible......makes polishing mag wheels look like child's play! Beautiful aircraft too.

 

Bad ass!!!

 

A beautiful job. Hell of a lot of rivets on that thing.

 

I spent over 12 hours on an at-6 Texan when I was 16 doing work at the air force museum on one of the restorations. Best time I ever had wish I was still living in Ohio just so I could volunteer there like when I was a kid.

 

I'd love to see that flying overhead, glistening in the sun! My dad was a B 17 pilot, here's a shot of him mugging for the camera......

 

I helped polish a friends Ercoupe once. We thought we'd do it one afternoon. Three other guys and a couple weeks later we finished it. It was freaking gorgeous though. There is not much prettier than polished aluminum trailers, planes, or cars.

 

This may sound silly but that black oxidation that you can't seem to wipe off comes off extremely easily with flour...just plain old baking flour. Just dust it on than wipe it off! easy cheesy.

 

How long will it stay looking like that if it's flying?

 

I had a 47 Scotty teardrop trailer that I attempted to polish once, it was one of the dirtiest jobs I had ever done, took forever, I can't imagine doing a B-17, it looks Great.

 

WOW!!!!! How amazing...beautiful!

 

I thought my old 172 was a lot of work, nothing like that!

 

and here I was bitching about having to buff out a 69 g.t.o... suddenly, it seems like a really small job!

 

This inspires me to polish my F-86 drop tank!

 

I recently watched my neighbor spend a weekend hand buffing his Airstream.

He must really love that trailer.

 

Its a beautiful thing no doubt about it..
I just wouldnt want to be the pilot to fly it into combat all gleaming and reflectant as that is...
but as a show piece..its awesome

 

It looks awesome for sure, but not terribly authentic, but then neither are any of the super polished P-51s and B-25s.

It had a good authentic natural patina'd aluminum, which I think looked great! But, when you own a multi million dollar aircraft, you want to show if off some. Note that the chin turret was left in paint... it's fiberglass.

I would think that after this summer, the finish should mellow out quite a bit, and it will look like a new replacement aircraft ready for mission #1.

 

Beautiful, but a LOT of work. I've done some polishing on the museums SNJ and can attest to how boring and tedious it can become.

And I'll recommend that you spend the money for a ride in one of these beasts. Costs a lot, but for a once in a life-time experience it's worth it. Flyable ones won't be around for ever...

 

Wow - that looks great! I'm inspired!

In fact, I think I'm going to go get my knob polished this weekend...

Maybe I can even try my hand at turd polishing!

~Jason

 

It's beautiful. Of course, y'all are right about not wanting to go to war with an airplane that is too shiny. Fortunately, the World's Finest Air Force has machines a little more capable than the B-17. Since the fliers of those more sophisticated machines know that they have to live up to the legacy of those that flew the Flying Fortress, we should be OK.