Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 Polished M3W

Suprised there is enough body thickness to do all that polishing:):):)

Be interested if know if it's standard grade Ali or aircraft grade. My caterham was unpainted Ali - drove it all year round and found that the Ali had started to pit where I hadn't washed it after every outing.
Hate to think what a few drives in the rain would do to that finish. Lovely as a piece of motoring art.

Aircraft grade aluminium is an alloy once known as duralumin that contains copper and manganese. It is stronger but corrodes faster than 'pure' aluminium.
To combat this, the raw sheets are coated with high grade aluminium. Scratching and polishing are best avoided as much as possible (American Airlines liked to polish their aircraft). When I was an Apprentice with BOAC we had to carry out various repairs using duralumin without damaging the protective layer. If you scratched it, you had to start again. Sometimes, days of work went in the bin.
Paint will be far more durable.

**Aluminum/Aluminium

I remember being part of a team that polished a Lightning fighter (English Electric / BAC , not Lockheed) with "Wadpol" for a Royal visit to RAF Valley in Angelsey (next to the sea) in the early 70's. It looked fantastic for about 4 days then started to form surface corrosion. Polishing took the thin protective surface off the Alclad metal. Soon after that Lightnings were painted rather than the natural metal finish. Paint was better for anti corrosion but they never looked as good as they did in bare metal. About the same deal with the M3W I would think.

During a hanger visit while on a 747 course I was horrified to see the damage caused to aluminium by urine. It turns it to the consistency of a wasps nest. (Older Morgan owners take note, you could fall out the bottom). While the polished version looks fantastic, as Blackadder suggests, it is more motoring art.

The polished body would be a commitment! I have had a few vintage Airstream trailers. They are built of Alclad, an strong aluminum alloy sheet with a few thousanths of raw aluminum cladding for the mirror surface, the underlying alloy is of a duller, goldish silver color.
Using the correct polish, polishing machinery, and cleaning techniques, you can keep it looking amazing. But the Airstream took about 40 hours of polishing in the spring, and another 40 in the fall to maintain. Of course a garaged vehicle would be less. That being said, my current vintage trailer is an Avion, which is Anodized Aluminum, and virtually maintenance free!
Depends on what you want to spend your time doing?

I see that my picture link did was not supported in my precious post.

I also have read that they M3W is in deed polished and I'm familiar with aluminum polishing on bikes, and it's a pain to keep up with, let alone a complete body.

As an alternative to the polished body, this process has been shown to be as durable as paint and as flexible as plastic and shines like chrome.

Spectra Chrome Link Here...

This is getting quite popular here in the US and I'm sure that the UK has custom shops with the same equipment.

It's truly amazing the finishes they are getting with this stuff.

Not for everyone, but still interesting to look at.

We have a polished B-17 bomber in our hanger. It is very labor intensive to keep up involving multiple people and power buffers, lots of compound and much sweat.

you probably use a cyclo buffer like i do.

Would love to see a picture or a link of that bad boy.

Dolph