Largest Detailing Job Ever! Airplane Detail after 20 Years

the Pima Air and Space Museum is located in Tucson Arizona the original concept for the museum began in 1966 when the Davis Air Force Base along with the military aircraft storage and disposition center realized that these historic World War two in 1950s era aircraft were being dismantled and smelted for use elsewhere thereby destroying these pieces of military history so after years of acquiring planes destined for the scrap yard the museum officially opened to the public on May 8 1976 since then Pima has grown to be one of the largest aviation museums in the country with more than one hundred and eighty nine thousand square feet of indoor displays and a collection of over 300 planes covering 80 acres outdoors but this week me and the guys have our eye on Sam 9 71 this is a Boeing vc-1 37 B but it started its life as an off-the-shelf 707 153 and converted for military use a few months later in 1959 now by 1961 it was assigned to the 1250 fourth Air Transport special missions wing located at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland now at 144 feet long and a wingspan of 130 feet we certainly had a lot of work to do on day one we wanted to get a feel for the condition of the paint and formulate a gameplan for how best to approach this restoration so I asked Jason Rose what he and Joe Fernandez did to realize that this plane would be salvageable and not in need of a total repaint as the museum once considered yeah Joe Fernandez and I we deliberately came out in October specifically for this purpose in it you know like with cars Detailers do this on cars but you do a test spot and the purpose of a test spot is to kind of determine you know which pad and tool and liquid combination is going to remove this level of oxidation line up for that test I use the route 21 and the Maguire's cutting disc yeah the new the new da phone kind of ideal for this so at first glance it seems that Jason and Joe's test spot done four months earlier has held up well in the Arizona Sun this gave us an idea of where to begin testing the pad product combinations in order to create a process for the entire team to stay consistent with the overall results as you can see the paint is severely faded because of the intense UV exposure in the desert and will require us to polish through heavily oxidized chalky or even dead paint before we can begin to reveal between layer of the planes skin with the team closely watching we began our new test spot to tweak the machine speed downward pressure supplemental wetting agents and of course the pad polished combination one test section that looks pretty good and a few other ones and we changed some variables that didn't look quite as good so we're gonna go back we polish it just to kind of figure out what we're going to do tomorrow we're going to duplicate that method with everybody McClendon's less the peppers while Kevin and the team finalized our polishing approach I got a chance to speak with the executive director of the Pima Museum Scott Marsh and you have an incredible museum here tell me a little bit about yeah I think it's pretty great museum - it's a fun place to work you know we're one of the top care museums on the planet we've got nearly 320 aircraft out here on 80 acres diversity and the collection unrivaled by anyone outside of the Smithsonian so it's it's a bit overwhelming when you walk in here you're like oh my gosh I mean every plane that I think I've ever dreamt about as a kid is here well good then we're doing our job right you know that's just we got to keep up on top of it ya know it's a it's a real passion and labor of love for everybody involved here this one really Alexei was effectively an Air Force and political airliner for most of its life and it has I guess three historic distinctions associated with it after the Iran hostage crisis came to an end in 1980 many of you may have seen the recent movie Argo the kind of picture that kind of fictionalized fictionalized as the base as it really is yeah yeah in January 1981 this airplane transferred the 52 American hostages in Tehran to rhein-main Air Force Base in Germany and then to Stuart Air Force Base in New York a few days later for upon their release so then for another 10 years it basically did the same type of mission had been before Gulf War ended in 1991 there were a small number of prisoners of war taken by the Iraqis during that conflict and this airplane had the distinction of repatriating the 20 American military surges after that conflict that mission was given the designation freedom one similar that it also carried in 1981 so ten years later was doing the exact same mission from that's unbeliever in country in the same part of the world it's that is unbelievable yeah and then it briefly for one episode in 1998 carried Air Force to designation Vice President Al Gore flew on it for work for some media tours and shortly after that trip concluded it was retired across the street from us here it was originally intended to be subject for parts reclamation to support other aircraft of its type in the fleet however we put a request in it with Air Force Museum at that time for representation in our collection they immediately agreed then shortly thereafter it arrived here and something on display ever since and now now it's getting clean now it's getting clean that's a you know it's an awesome thing for us to have happen I mean one of our biggest challenges out here is keeping the aircraft looking great and our enemy is the Sun you know let's say right now man you it's the only yeah I know it's you know it's hot it's a high UV so paint and rubber are a real challenge out here some of the paints depending on their era they've last for decades others not so much this airplane here was probably last painted in the early 1980s so this is the first real sort of intensive attention it's had since then so we're really grateful for all the effort that's going into bringing it I just it's more eyes better they're doing all the heavy liftings ya know it's it's a really spectacular thing to see you all right guys come over here as day one comes to a close after a few hours maybe three four hours you can see a massive difference and we're calling this the world's largest 50/50 shot clearly this side we've polished this side is not polished we did a little bit over here too so what we're doing on a plane like this size on day one is just kind of figuring out what's working and Kevin was working on some different things 105 205 which pad the roofs etc and we've come up with clearly something that's working now we need to do the rest of the plane as you can see Joe up there he's figuring out the wing the wing is a little bit different a lot lot more chalk is coming off of that so lots more to do but it's gonna be a lot of fun on day two we started bright and early and Joe set our game plan for the next three days now what our plan is when when we get situated at a panel here I'll show you right here we on this airplane is it's going to be we got to get to these different areas in the various ways right some we got to get on a ladder we got to get on the lift we got to have harnesses on so when you make it to a panel it took some time to get to that panel so when you're there we're going to do three things while we're there we're going to clean it what I wanted us wash we're going to polish it and can restore that paint and then we're going to do this spray wax at D 156 and it's done that panel is done now when we move away from that panel there's no reason for us to go back and mess with that panel understand I mean all right guys check this out this is the staging area before we go out and work on the plane of course we have rotary polishers we have the roofs polisher we have the MT 300 we have this contraption that Joe created which is pretty cool it's a stand-up polisher where the rotary is down here so you don't have to bend over and what you're doing a wing let's say so we're going to talk to him a little bit about that but this whole section is the guys come in here and get all their tools and then run back out to the plane got microfiber towels we got McGuire's cutting pads we've got 2:05 look we got wool pads everywhere metal polish years ago I put a boat okay one end of a broomstick and it was called it was called Porter Kate wanna stick yeah and we go we do RVs with it you know and we'd have to go up and down a ladder yeah because if you know when you're doing RV you got to go up a ladder and you do a spot you reach this way and you reach that way you got to come down the ladder you move it over our foot or two you got to go up the ladder and you do that you got a 40-foot RV you do that you know 20 30 times sure I was thinking there's got to be a better way and we've detailed airplanes and when we do these big airplanes and we do the tops of the wings we're on our hands and knees with your partner of choice in the other hand so you're on really two two knees and one arm because one arm is holding the machine supporting machine and you go inch by inch by inch so I started researching the janitorial industry and what can we use on top of wings a fuselages where we can stand up and use it I'm researching and this one guy made this small thing and it's it what it is it seems like parts that already exist and he kind of symbol them together and he made his own head his name is Bill Savio gotta give him credit sure name is company is the hot rod and this is called the hot rod you know and he's in Boca and what it is is he made it we're a buffer fits this buffer we all know and love right and he and he manufactures I think resources a scrub brush that goes on a rotary buffer he says what it was you know what do you guys mean you know wasn't here in janitorial business I'm an auto detailer he's thinking so why we even have a conversation guy go cuz that's a buffer a machine we use and I'm going to put that out here man I'm gonna you know you're you know buff cars with us it's now we're going to airplane so our secret weapon for the wing and the top of the fuselage was this tool which allowed us to work longer because the typical fatigue from being on hands and knees was minimized this is why I love Detailers this combination of artist and engineer wrapped in OCD is what drives new innovation in any industry and this passed its first test with flying colors so step one is to clean the surface of any old oil dirt and grime from years of sitting outside all right the first step of any detail is to clean the area whether it's a car or a plane if you have dirt grit and mud on the surface you're going to go to polish it and all that grit is going to get in there and cause some issues for you so the first thing that we did on most the plane was power washing underneath this is the engine so we're going to be a little bit more sensitive so we're going to use this little mini sprayer here you can spray some degreaser like this or in this case I actually have a bucket with some degreaser in it I'll put it right on the rag there I'll just lightly spread it in and this will remove a good portion of the junk that'll get stuck in that pad and make your life a lot easier and your job look much much better all right Kevin so obviously step one was to clean it and to basically take off all the grease etc etc so when we're polishing it doesn't get into the pad so step two tell me a little bit about the process well once again well like you said we wiped off any loose debris but there's a lot of chalkiness they're absolutely oxidized dead paint sitting on the surface so we did a couple of different procedures one of them was with a compound which cuts quickly however in this case it was cutting so rapidly was mucking up the pad and coming it up couldn't continue to cut should we switch to the ultra finishing polish the M 205 that you're familiar with yeah and it's a much more wet longer-lasting of formula and so it works perfectly with the da foam disc yoke you can see how much oxidation sure paint or residue will remove me because this is the original color yeah right so this has worked out very well so I'm just doing a you know a pretty good application of the 205 and then just working in there you're keeping it wet and fluid okay let's take a look yeah you know its speed on what I'm on for right now okay that's a little high so there we go okay so just half yeah three and a half it's working really well notice his arm speed is not really moving back and forth really fast drop it down to three and now now he's moved it down to three so that's comfortable and easy to control in it look at it cotton I mean it's spinning looks pretty plenty so I'll do another pass and look at the size that he's working the size is very small not going from not cleaning up really nice yeah and this past fairly new so it's really moving well now think about the size of this airplane if you're doing a little one by one or a two by two spot this is why you need 15 guys to do something like this at that point it still fluid on the surface so wanted to continue to polish the abrasives and the buffing liquid itself still in good shape it just got a lot of paint residue so if it wanted to get that to transfer back onto the plane I just would do a spritz of water that's probably too much but that's okay it'll it'll evaporate water in a desert so right if you got pull it out yep and I can continue it to polish now you would expect that when you do that because you got a lot of debris in there paint residue it would scour a little more we'd expect out to my final pass I'll leave the pad and do a final pass okay so that was a simple supplemental wetting agent that we talked about at 40 tonight well obviously we're still doing it on a plane look at that cut it's just cleaning it up immediately Wow you know the oxidized dead paint that layer is actually protecting the paint I here in the desert so it doesn't look nice nobody wants to fly in something that's all crusty white but it actually protected it so the next thing is we didn't hit it with a little bit of water wipe it down you we would do that in this case um yeah let's do that so just kind of remove any of any of the excess standing remnants yeah and then we're actually going to go with a mist and wipe paint sealant that's actually very durable and asked good cleaning properties sure sure well that's it and that's it one last wipe and that's it look at that I mean clearly the difference is like no more night and day I mean look at this over here versus this over here you guys know that we clean our pads and we're detailing a car same thing is true for a plane so Eric and Paul here are doing this process where the removing all the excess residue vital for a clean process during the course of the week Paul washed 85 pads and 500 towels almost every hour because of the extreme residue we were removing this endless loop of polishing cleaning drying and then using them again was absolutely critical to the quality of our end result and that same philosophy holds true for cars boats and motorcycles working clean is key with those areas of brightwork in really bad shape jason has a two-step process which includes the rotary and roll light metal polish for removing heavy oxidation on the leading edge of the engine so you can see all the scratches and you know this oxidation on the aluminum and I'll come back read on here so we're going to take our rotary tool I'm a low-speed guy so I have it on the lowest speed setting but you can actually go higher speed and so this black hole is little boy yeah this is actually the oxidized top layer this elusive dead stuff coming off so you're pulling that off and now what we do is wipe off this residue oh wow and you can see a considerable difference from here to here here to here so but it still is not where we want it you know this is considered like I said a rough cut I'm going to hit it one more quick pass here just wanted to get that other edge a little better so then we're actually going to switch to okay to a DA polisher this is the new McGuire's mt 300 and we're also using a DA foam disc that's a cutting disc for removing defects short and a ultimate polish for removing the rest of this yeah I can see little fine stuff here that I think this will be a little better for so what speed I'm going to be at like 3800 as you can see the DA action is a lot different than rotary it'll generate a lot less surface heat that it'll come up the rest of it and once again wiping the residue pull out a lot brighter that's a huge difference you're really deep scratches or removed real superfine stuff is still there there could be you know a little bit more polish so you can't we would yeah we would stay there a little long yeah yeah but I think I see just absolutely huge difference so this is a process we're going to do a two step process on the entire brightwork I'll be uncoated aluminum surfaces everywhere yes this is going to look amazing yeah now the backside of the engine didn't require the rotary as the leading edge did so we used da polishers metal polish and a foam cutting pad to restore the shine the difference between these pieces and the painted surfaces is the dead chalky paint residue is typically the color of the paint while the aluminum residue is black gummy and if you couldn't tell quite a bit more messy on day three we received our special articulating boom to hoist us up to the highest point of the plane which of course is the tail section for that I wore my full body harness and fall protection gear we were trained to use the morning of day one this was a three hour class taught by an OSHA certified trainer to educate us on how to work safely at these Heights we even discussed extension cord management because we needed hundreds of feet of power cords for our polishers very intensive class and well worth the training as Jason and I worked our way to the top of the tail the magnitude of this experience began to hit me we were polishing the American flag on a plane that brought our hostages and POWs back to the United States after captivity this was the first American symbol they would have seen in months or even years so to bring it back to its original condition was a special moment for both of us our technique varied slightly on the tail because of the extreme heat and heavy residue or chalk being removed so unlike the technique used on the painted surface with Kevin Brown Jason and I actually increased our arm speed and supplemental wetting agents because in this case the product would flash and evaporate extremely fast so our technique had to be adjusted for the extreme environment and the substrate being polished leading us to slightly alter the original plan on this particular area of the plane what made this project extra special for me was the opportunity to work with 15 Detailers who hustled 10 to 12 hours a day in blazing heat head down polisher running with no complaints every person had an important role and we work together as a team the journey was well worth the effort and I'm grateful to be a part of this dedicated group of Detailers as you might imagine there's a lot of different colors and sections on an airplane especially one this big for us we were in charge of polishing and cleaning this blue area now if you notice this doesn't really look all that great and the backstory is the curator of the museum said hey we're about to repaint this entire plane and Joe and Jason came in I think we talked about that before they did a little test panel and the test panel came out and looked just like this so the curator said this looks amazing I want you two guys to do the blue underneath the tail and the tops of the wings but this section here we're going to repaint so they're going to do that next week then they're also going to repaint the gold flake that goes all the way along the outside of the plane so it's getting a full detail and a new paint job so we're rounding third and it's it's almost there the last steps of detailing the plane is actually figuring out the right color now that they had no idea so they gave us a big chunk here of different colors so I'm trying to look in the shade over here and in the Sun and see which one has the right tone for this plane now remember this has been so faded so we're kind of we're kind of eyeballing it right now so what do you guys think is this the right color or not looks pretty good to me as our fourth day came to a close the plane had made a drastic transformation the engines once covered and dried on grease and grime now look as good as the day of its deployment and at this point in our restoration we were absolutely exhausted and beaten up from the intense Sun but extremely proud of the work 15 friends accomplished in just over 500 man-hours well we're just about done with the restoration of freedom one and I have to tell you the transformation is night and day but I wanted to give you guys a little perspective on all the tools we use to clean this plane so this is about 500 dirty towels that we use and we wash them multiple times we used 85 to 90 polishing pads 20 different machines and I can't even tell you how many gallons of product to clean this piece of American history as our time here ended a lot of us younger guys who are not even born during the Iran hostage crisis began to appreciate the significance of this plane and the role it played in American history a historian once wrote that this crisis involved more concentrated effort and strategy by American officials and garnered more TV and press coverage than any other single event since World War two I'm sure I can speak for everyone involved when I say this was an honor and a privilege in our detailing careers that we'll never forget you you you

Channel: AMMO NYC

Views: 1,564,331

Rating: 4.8721395 out of 5

Keywords: Top Detailing Tips, Freedom 1, Freedom one airplane, Air Force 1 detail, How to detail a plane, Air force 1 detailing team, Airforce 1 detailers, How to detail airforce one, Iran hostage crisis airplane, Rupes polishers on plane, Air plane deatiling, Larry Kosilla Airforce 1 detailer, Detailing the presidential plane, www.ammonyc.com, AMMO Detailing Products, air force one, Largest detail ever, Deatiling plane after 20 years, air force one documentary, air force 1 details

Id: cOrskBTuNLA

Length: 25min 43sec (1543 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 03 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/gnartung]

For everyone else, this is a paint and finish restoration video. A very, very large, detail job.

[u/YMK1234]

Very stupid question, but is it just me or is "Freedom" such an overused word that it kinda lost all meaning? Says me as a non-American.