Advise on Plastic Lenses

I

imported_buffer

New member
I have just successfully gone through the process of getting heavy scratching out of the inside of my headlight lense. This took some work with my dremel and compounds but I'm done. My concern at this point is the minor scratches you can see in certain lights from the compound. Now I know I can just use a cleaner and get them out but will that not have to be applied once again after time? I would assume that the answer is yes which brings me to the point of this thread. I have to reseal these lights and put them back on the car. Now if the cleaner/polish wears out after a while and the compound scratches come back I'm screwed. To get them out I have to remove the lights and crack them open again which is something that I would like to avoid. Is there something I can do to avoid this? Is there a product that will last if it isn't exposed to the elements? I was thinking something like Plexus might do it.



Thought?

:confused:
 
what you should do is work your way down, if you were using a compound, maybe hit it with some dacp, IP, or some ssr2 some sort of a medium cut polish, then use a light polish SSR1, FP, SMR, whatever you have laying around, that will remove the compounding scratches. Then you should clean out the lights with 50/50 alc. water mix to make sure that there is no product residue left. Be sure to dry them throughly and stick them back on.



Hope that helped



Mike
 
Plexus is a great product but I don't know if it would work in this application.



Merguiar's has two plastic polishes which might be the "permanent" solution you seek.



Good luck on re-sealing the headlights...that can be real tough. :mad:
 
You might want to try some Novus. They have a 3 step process that has 3 different compounds for scratches. #1 is just a cleaner. I use it all the time on my lenses with great success.
 
I have plastic lenses on our 96 T&C minivan. I renewed them starting with 2000 grit wet sanding followed by 3M FC compound, 3M SMR, Plexus Cleaner and Plexus Polish. I used a wool pad with the rotary with the 3M products and the Plexus by hand. The goal was to completely remove all scratches obscurring the lens, not fill them. I used the 3M because I had it on hand but the Plexus I picked up at the local Marine Store. It has been a year and they still look great.
 
Unfortunately due to the fact that I am doing the inside of the lenses I will not be able to get my PC in there. Too tight. I will try the SMR by hand on the inside to see if that helps. The only SMR I have right now is the Meguires.



Thanks guys

:cool:
 
I wonder if you could use a cotton buffer wheel attached to a portable drill to buff it. Eastwood has a kit just for headlights. I have seen these buffer wheels at most stores and notice they use metal polish with the Eastwood kit.



P12970.jpg




Link To Eastwood Kit
 
Yeah I have plastics but I'm not convinced it is doing anything but then again I have only tried two passed. I'm going to try a couple of more passed with plastix to see what happens. I always like to use the least agressive methods first.



thanks
 
Buffer, did you actually read that thread I linked to? (Don't mean that to sound snippy -- But sometimes folks don't realize that it's a hyperlink.) As Mike P told me, you REALLY have to bear-down with the PlastX and work it quite a while. That thread I referenced has more details about how I used it successfully on 30-yr-old taillight lenses.
 
Lynn said:
Buffer, did you actually read that thread I linked to? (Don't mean that to sound snippy -- But sometimes folks don't realize that it's a hyperlink.) As Mike P told me, you REALLY have to bear-down with the PlastX and work it quite a while. That thread I referenced has more details about how I used it successfully on 30-yr-old taillight lenses.
Click to expand...



Yep.. Listen to Lynn! The lenses she did came out great...
 
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