The spinner doesn't match my plane. I will either paint to match, or strip the paint and polish.

Can anyone share their experience with the latter course of action?

I really like the way that a polished spinners look and am not too intimidated by polishing it up a couple of times a year, but I'm curious about the work burden of taking it from a painted state to looking nice and shiny?

Polishing a spinner is about the same as any other piece of aluminum. First polish take it off the plane to strip it and polish it with a power buffer, after that polish it on the plane once a year by hand. Stripping it is easy for something that small, go to Walmart and buy a spray can of stripper, do the work OUTSIDE on a warm day between 65 and 85 degrees. Any brand of polish from Aircraft Spruce will work fine on aluminum, some of the stuff at auto stores are not so great on aluminum but fine on chrome. The real problem comes when you decide the spinner looks great, and you decide to polish the entire plane to match it.

Dale Moul wrote:The real problem comes when you decide the spinner looks great, and you decide to polish the entire plane to match it.

That is definitely not happening. Thanks for the advice!

If your girlfriend gets a little paint on her, thinner on a shop rag should get it off

…oh wait..never mind lol

I would paint it. I prefer flat black if your prop blades are also flat black.

Polishing sucks and its a never ending battle.

We have a polished spinner. I haven't used any actual polish on it in the 4 years we've had it. This is coming from someone who washes the plane once a year and cleans the bugs occasionally. Its a little hazy, but still plenty shiny, and fits right in for an airplane that lands off pavement as much as on.

I prefer a polished spinner (and that’s the only polished thing on an aircraft) but my luck with polishing myself hasn’t been that great. I wasn’t able to get the mirror shine I was hoping for. Probably didn’t take it far enough.

Polished has been out of style for a few years in my paint shop.

We put this new polished spinner on this plane yesterday and we all thought it looked silly.

Sent the owner a pic and he said paint it.

I’ve polished a lot of aluminum and it is not what I call fun.

Ross4289 wrote:Polished has been out of style for a few years in my paint shop.

We put this new polished spinner on this plane yesterday and we all thought it looked silly.

Sent the owner a pic and he said paint it.

I’ve polished a lot of aluminum and it is not what I call fun.

That's a painted composite MT spinner, right?

If the spinner has never been polished, painted since Day 1 you are in for a lot of work.

Scolopax wrote:

Ross4289 wrote:Polished has been out of style for a few years in my paint shop.

We put this new polished spinner on this plane yesterday and we all thought it looked silly.

Sent the owner a pic and he said paint it.

I’ve polished a lot of aluminum and it is not what I call fun.

That's a painted composite MT spinner, right?

No, that’s a brand new MT polished aluminum spinner on a brand new MT prop. It’s now flat black at this point.