Although the paintjob on my Monnett Monerai was really good, we like to polish our gliders after they are painted and the paint is fully set (usually takes a few weeks). Polishing the paint gives the glider that bit of extra gloss and smooth surfaces and gets rid of the slight “orange skin” structure in the paint. It’s a lot of work though. I divided it over three days, around 2-3 hours each day.

A short “how to”: First we get rid of the orange skin structure by wet sanding all painted surfaces with 800 grit sanding pads (Georg even starts with 600 grit sandpaper), followed by 1500 grit and then a 3000 grit sanding pad (all by hand). After that we machine polish all surfaces using a fast cut compound, followed by a machine polish compound. See the last picture below for the materials used. In Switzerland we purchase all materials through sury.ch – unfortunately only in larger quantities, but then they last a lifetime of building gliders.