Help me with polishing plastic

iDetail

New member
i am trying to polish my headlight lens's and i am having some problems. I cant seem to get them clear as glass. I have been using Novus step 2 polish on it and its not working the way i would like. I also tried using my 3M rubbing compound and it did nothing.



Ive wetsanded them with 2000 grit paper and polished them and this is what they look like.



lens1id6.jpg


lens2fl6.jpg




Can someone recommend a product that will get these things perfect. It was hard to get a good picture.
 
Have you tried Meg's PlastX?



Here's a link to one story about it.



I can tell you that it did well for me. The lights on my wife's 1998 Stratus were almost white. PlastX cleared them up almost like new.
 
In the past, when I have done light restoration, I will do the following:



1000 grit

2000 grit

3000 grit

meguiars plastic twins... the name espaces me, but one is more agressive than the other. @ 900, polishing pad

Zaino Plastic polish to finish.
 
Do you have a machine? Are the lenses glass or plastic? If you don't have a machine you can try a drill adapter as seen in the link 4" Buffing Pads + Adapters. I used Megs PlastX with an orange pad attached to my PC 7424 on speed 6 on the headlights on a Dodge Caravan and they came out at least 90% better. I'll try to post some before/afters later(btw the lenses were plastic) I'd say you have an easier job ahead of you because you took off the lenses, which makes them easier to polish. Oh, and as to sandpaper, I'd use it only after trying the liquid polishes because the same headlights on the Dodge still had sanding marks on them after the PlastX, but that could easily have been from not using a fine enough grade of paper. Still, I believe many on this forum would agree that the least aggressive method that works is USUALLY the best.
 
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