The Art of Polishing!

We had every intention of polishing our own airstream upon interior completion, but after meeting Wally Hoffman and hearing his raving reviews of A+ Trailer Polishing, we decided to give Kreg a call. Kreg and his team are based in California but were happy to get in a little Bend, OR adventure time. The exterior skin of our airstream was in rough shape, complete with scratches, dents and worming ie. filiform corrosion. The steps that Kreg and his team took in regards to the initial sanding are not necessarily the steps that would be recommended for all airstreams, the process depends on the condition of the skins.

We removed the clear coat a few months back, using Multi-Strip from Home Depot. This product had a strong scent of bananas/gruyere, but was advertised a an eco-friendly option and worked very well. Kreg hit some of the tougher spots where clear coat still remained with PPG Aerospace Peroxide Activated Stripper from Vintage Trailer Supply.

After removing the clear coat, the first step to polishing was sanding the whole exterior to remove the filiform, using an orbital sander and moving to progressively finer sand paper. This was followed up with two cuts of Nuvite F9 Polish, one cut of C using a compound polisher, and finally one cut of S using a random orbital polisher. Between each cut, the skin is cleaned with mineral spirits to remove oxidation, ultimately leaving you with a mirror-like shine.

*Most all of these supplies can be purchased from our friends over at Vintage Trailer Supply