I have been in the hangar all day polishing and think I may have come down with "Metal Illness". I thought I would check with you guys to see what the symptoms are for sure before I go running to the doctor. Here are a few of my symptoms.
1. Nuvite smells good to me
2. Can't get the song by Florida Georgia Line, ‘Get Your Shine On’ out of my head
3. Body aches. Especially my back.
4. Self doubt. Is this how Bob (Shine On) Mika does it?
Let me know if you think you had a case of "Metal Illness" and what your symptom were.
After many responses from other Sonex builders, it sound like I do have a case of "metal illness".
Thanks to all the help and support of my Sonex family it looks like I am going to recover from my "Metal Illness". For this year anyway. Next year I fully expect it to return. My wife always told me I was attracted to shiny things. This may be the reason I have a 20 X 30 photo of the Kerry (Sonex Doctor) Fores "Metal Illness" hanging in my garage. This photo was taken while I was in Oshosh one year when I was still dreaming about building a Sonex. It turned out to be great inspiration to me during the build. One of the many things I've learned while building the Sonex is to never loose sight of the vision of what you are trying to create. That photo helped me when I would start to question why I was doing this. I am glad I stuck it out. It has been worth every bit of the effort and then some.
This was my third year annual polishing of my Sonex.
1. Tried to do the polish job in one day to minimize the dirty cloths and hands.
2. Found these great black skin tight rubber gloves at HF. Really kept hands clean.
3. Did one pass with each grade F7 and C with standard HF buffer. Did the final pass of S with the new HF 6 inch random orbital that looks like buffer with wool cover covered again with the terry cloth bonnet. Worth every bit of the $54 spent. This guy took all the swirls out very easily.
4. Did not clean between passes. Tried using less polish so there was less residue. Mainly what was left was around rivets.
5. Ended up waiting to clean the entire plane the next morning. I used mineral spirits on one supper soft terry cloth from Walmart to wipe one section down. When the mineral sports dried to light haze I followed with a fresh clean super soft terry cloth and buffed residue off.
Looks better than it ever has and it will be good enough for this year. That is one nice thing about a polished plane it gets better looking every year we take the time to endure a case of "Metal Illness".
Remember Paint chips and polish doesn't.
