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Quote:

BigKev,

There is a history of this kind of exterior treatment on airplanes, of course. Being aluminum rather than steel, they posed fewer problems with protecting the finish.

In WWII (perhaps earlier) they were called "clean skin" planes and were pretty much all bombers (often B24s) equipped for the private use of the big Brass to fly in. A few clean skin long range bombers also seemed to have started appearing toward the end of the war.

Even a B&W photo of a clean skin B24 in flight is really impressive. Ground crews were evidently kept very busy polishing the General's airplane.

It sure would be fun to do this treatment on your Packard, at least for a while until you painted it. Your body work is outstanding, so there's no reason to hide it. I meant to mention earlier that it seemed a shame to cover up all that pretty silver!

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A clear over the clean steel would be an interesting thing to do. If you wanted to get fancy with it, you could always put a grain into the steel with scotchbrite pads.

The "clean skin" idea is a bit different than what Kev's talking about in that all military and some high-end civilian aircraft skinned in aluminum were/are made of exterior sheet metal that is coated or "clad" in a very thin layer of pure aluminum (usually hidden under zinc-chromate paint) on both sides as an extra line of defense against corrosion. But that's not to say they weren't polished just as often as the general's caddy. I worked on my fair share over the years and I can tell you that it's not the easiest thing to keep spotless.

First saw the Stude in the pics back in July '08. It's been left in bare metal but with a coating of lanolin apparently because the owner doesn't want to spend the $$$ painting it. Last time I saw the car, towards end of '10, it was still the same.

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My Clipper was treated with Owatrol oil top to bottom to preserve the bare metal. I think it reinforces a car's patina.

owatrol.com/index.php?langue=en&page=accueil

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i was wondering about that, so THAT is how your car looks like that.

No real forward progress on the car today. But I did order the rear muffler bracket from Max, and two NOS rear windows from Mike Dotson.

Also took the youngest daughter to DQ in the Packard. Actually drove it with the windows up and this time it didn't resemble a "Cheech and Chong" movie like the the time Jim and myself were driving in a while back.

Wet weather is on the way in so trying to keep the garage sealed up with all the bare metal.

Kev, at this point driving the car and loosening it up is indeed forward progress! Sounds like a fun afternoon! Sorry to hear the mosquitos will be returning to the neighborhood. I guess the upshot is the police not wondering where all the smoke inside the car came from!

Some progress this evening......


Made major head way at getting what was left of the old insulation, rust, factory primer stripped from the underside of the roof. To say this was a messing process is an understatement. I used a stripping disc on a grinder and it ate through all the crud pretty easily and flung the dirt and debris all over me and every square inch of the interior. Glad all the fabric is out of the car at the moment. I had all the door open and a large fan helping to blow the dust out of the far side of the car.

Even with that, wearing a respirator, and safety glasses, I still managed to look like I was wearing black face makeup when all was done.

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Progress at least. We'll keep good thoughts the old mastic and fiber remnants didn't contain asbestos.

Uggg....not what I wanted to hear.