Ideas for polishing plastic aircraft windows?

R

rjirvine

New member
This is a little off topic as far as auto detailing, but I think the idea is the same:



I am trying to figure out what products (if any) would be best to polish plastic aircraft windows. They are circular and about 10" in diameter. The ones on the planes I fly are always crappy and replacing them takes a LONG time. I am trying to come up with a simple method using a random orbital polisher like the PC 7424/7336 to at least fix some of the crazing & scratches. I am trying to keep it simple, and figure that the PC would be better than the rotary for ease of use. I'm sure heat buildup a major factor though. Anyone have any experience/ideas? I can get an old window to practice on once I figure out what products might work.
 
I've had great results restoring plastic headlights with PlastX. You would be amazed what you can do with it. I've even done some wet-sanding to get out the deep scratches, then follow up with PlastX to get out the sanding marks.
 
I have used Plexus on plastic, but as I recall, it's just a cleaner (a very good one). The windows I'm talking about are crazed and have a solid milky appearance that you can't see through because they are so old and neglected. I'm researching the micro-surface site now that was mentioned above.
 
The pictures below show the results I got from using Megs Mirror Glaze #17 and #10.



Plexus is great stuff. I thought their claim to fame was that their product was the one used to clean the canopies of the B-1 bombers... I use it to keep the plastic clear once it has been washed and polish.



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10%20and%2017%20012.jpg
 
I would start out slowly with the pretty common Novus products. My caution would be that polishing a headlight is very different from a surface you are looking through. A few times I have polished for a perfect look, only to find that I induced waves in the surface cause obvious optical distortion...worse than scratches, trust me!



novuspolish
 
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