Buffing scratches in plexiglass?

[Panik]

Sixty years of riding motorcycles and many of those years with some form of Plexiglas windshield. I've tried most everything. Except olive oil.

My first suggestion. Meguiars Mirror Glaze. Clear plastic polish. This product is good and only relatively expensive.

Then there is the ULTIMATE product. I've used it to visually obscure even deep scratches on Plexiglas. This product provides excellent results and is quite expensive. 13 oz spray can - around $26.

Plexus - plastic cleaner, protectant and polish. It is used by the Air Force on their aircraft plexi windshields. A good friend in the AF told me about it.

From experience - I've found that you can not buff scratches out of Plexiglas. At best - you will create an obnoxious area of "haze"

OP, I'm kinda with Oosik on this one, but coming from a different background - the zoo and aquarium industry.

I know it's possible because I've seen the finished results in the re-surfacing of large polycarbonate viewing windows for animal enclosures. A big however is that it appears to take a fair bit of skill to pull it off in such a manner that you don't wind up making things worse by creating a haze in the area you are trying to repair.

My two pieces of advice would be:

1) Use a couple sheets of similar material as a test bed in order to dial in your materials and technique prior to attempting it on your tractor's windshield.

2) Work upward from the most minimally aggressive technique you have at your disposal and understand that you may have to work over the entire windshield to match finish levels.

....Also understand that there are some scratches you may never be able to fully hide/remove due to the depth of the marring and that in chasing perfection you may inadvertently make the situation worse.

 

[DaveMueller]

Acrylic and polycarbonate are great materials unless you want to see through them for a long time
They're relatively soft which makes them prone to scratches and difficult to polish. Most eyeglasses (including safety glasses) are polycarbonate, that's why they sell you anti-scratch coatings when you buy them.
A car repair shop I spoke to said for headlights, they use progressively finer emery cloth up to something ridiculous like 2000 grit. Works but it's labor intensive even for the relatively small headlights on cars.
Liquids like olive oil or WD-40 fill in the scratches which reduces the diffraction and makes them hard to see, but it's temporary.

 

[Williy]

Rustyiron check out this

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=removing+scratches+on++polycarbonate.

willy

 

[Panik]

Rustyiron check out this

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=removing+scratches+on++polycarbonate.

willy

I'll be darned.... that's pretty darned cool! I knew about using heat to renew other plastics (stadium chairs), and had casually read about flame polishing cut edges of polycarbonate but like my earlier post indicated I had always thought scratch removal was in the realm of fine abrasive compounds and buffing.

Be kinda neat to buy a digital temp adjustable heat gun and play around with which temperature and distance from the sheet were most effective.