Repair scratches on plastic lens?

[CARRERIC]

Just bought a used rear center reflector (Black Lattering) with scratches all over the lens. Looks like it was on the floor etc.. I just tried the maquires plastic restore helped a little. You can still see alot of scratches. Possible to sand with 600 grit and buff? Any recommendations?

Eric

[BoogieOnSkis]

You have a number of options.

The cheapest is probably toothpaste -- something with grit, like colgate (not gel).

Meguiar's, Novus, and Griot's Garage all make products that will probably work well. Some are designed for use on motorcycle windshields or lexan.

The stuff that will probably work best is called "Micromesh" (grit sandpaper, all the way down to 25,000). You can probably find it at your local airport, or airplane supply house. This stuff is used to take the scratches out of acrylic windows on airplanes.

I know a guy who works on business jets at an airport. He says he uses micromesh starting at 3600 grit to get rid of heavy scratches. Then works down to 6000 grit, then 8000 grit, then 12000 grit. He wet-sands with the micromesh with plenty of water, and says that dry-sanding will cause orange-peel by overheating the plastic. After that, he uses Novus 2, then Novus 1. He says it looks brand new after all this.

I think that J&P Cycles carries both Novus and micromesh.

3M also makes something called "Finese-it" -- special sanding disks that mount on a random orbital sander (very expensive, by the way). Then, finish with 3M mirror glaze on a high speed buffer.

One word of caution -- you should sand the entire surface evenly. If you take off more material in one spot than in others, it will create bulls eyes or distortion.

Good luck!

[CARRERIC]

Bob thanks for the help. I will source the products and post my results.

Thanks
Eric

[Formerly Steve Wilkinson]

I second the Micromesh recommendation. I used it on all my plastic lenses when restoring an SC and used to use it on my airplane canopy.

Stephan

[Silveresrty911S]

Try sourcing at www.aircraftspruce.com and get one of their free cataloges, alot of great stuff in it.

[CARRERIC]

Just found these micromesh repair kits. I ordered the aquarium tank repair kit, very well priced.

https://www.micro-surface.com/default.cfm?page_id=1#19

[89911]

If you have access to a bench grinder and a buffing wheel, use a new rag wheel and some acrylic or plastic buffing compound. You can get this from Sears along with the compounds like Rouge and tripoli. Use a lot of compound and gently work the scratches out. I've used this means to buff scratchs out from everything to items like scratched CD's that skip and watch crystals. You can also use a hand tool such as a electric drill. Just use a new clean buffing wheel, (also available from Sears), and lots of compound. Finish using very light pressure and high speed.

[jmohn]

I used the Novus products (2 stages, IIRC) on an old boat windshield (in the past) and it worked quite well. That may be worth a try before trying a more "aggressive" approach.

Jerry M
'78 SC

[pbs911]

I resurfaced the face of my front turn signals using very fine sandpaper on a belt sander. Polished it up with plastic polish and they were almost as good as new. Some of the rock chips were just too deep to remove by any method. Overall it improved the appearance 100%.

[stealthn]

Borax, believe it or not.....

[RoninLB]

does anyone know what happens when using a die grinder and the finer compounds or Borax ?