For over 20 years my AirVenture experience was limited to the square footage of the Sonex booth and a direct path to the nearest grey saunas. Customers would ask if I had seen the new Darwin Globetrotter with Pizzazz 3.1 and Bluetooth-pairing to canvas canopy covers. I hadn’t. I wondered if it was anything like an E6-B. What I had seen was slowly filling my AirVenture bingo card, but only if it came clearly within 20/100 vision (degraded further by sweat and sunscreen) of the booth. For 20-plus years, that was my AirVenture. Well, I’ve been free of that for my third year now and I attended, rather than gave, my first forum in decades. It was Nuvite’s forum on polishing metal. Something I thought I knew. Something I’ve dedicated a three-part feature in KITPLANES to. Something other Sonex builders seek my advice on. I learned that, too, has changed in the 20 years since I first put polish to pad. Not much, but enough.
It’s easy to walk AirVenture year after year and shrug at the lack of noticeable change. Same vendors in the same spots . Same airplanes in the same spots. And (thankfully!) the same grey saunas in the same spots. There are also those who complain of the changes that are made. “When did Kitfox move from over by the warbirds?” File it all under human nature. But change isn’t always noticeable. Some changes come quietly, like an update in the terms of service for cell service that quietly extracts another $1.50 from your wallet every month for a “Connectivity Convenience Fee.” Sitting in a forum for a skill I thought I knew well opened my 20/100 eyes to subtle but important changes in the polishing process.
My process, undeniably successful, was based on slight modifications I made to the manufacturer’s instructions. During the forum I learned those instructions, though still posted on their website, are outdated, and I learned why I use a different buffer RPM than Nuvite recommends. I learned that heat plays an important role in achieving the desired results quickly; something that has never come to light in all my time polishing. I learned that 6061-T6 is manufactured differently than it was 20 years ago and that that plays a part as well. I learned there is a new(er) video on the Nuvite website that details the current recommended techniques. I learned they’ve been trying for years to get the old instructions removed.
It would have been easy to shrug my shoulders and skip a forum on a topic I thought I knew well. Chance brought me to the forum and I’ve learned when the universe takes you somewhere you don’t think you belong it’s really kicking you in the arse and saying, “Trust me.” Then there’s that saying about old dogs and new tricks. Well, the trick wasn’t new (to me) but it’s been refined. This old dog is anxious to apply my new knowledge to my project and share my results in a future KITPLANES article.
The large message here is change doesn’t have to be obvious to be important. Both builders and vendors (and I’ve been both) benefit from the dissemination (and deletion) of information. AirVenture is the premier venue for builders and exhibitors to meet face-to-face to learn from each other to keep this shared passion thriving.
