Metal Polish and Headlights

[drateam]

Looking to thank the member who wrote an excellent response on sanding headlights to restore them. I read several posts this morning about restoring clouded headlights, and came upon a response from this person, who works with polycarbonate. Forgot to record his handle/post, but want to THANK HIM for his informed recommendation of using metal polish and hand polishing. I've tried several wonder products that don't work at all (except to make your pockets lighter), and can't understand why anyone would think that sanding is a good idea. I decided to give his strong recommendation a try, and let's keep it simple: IT WORKS. For lenses like mine that have seven years of environmental damage, the hand sanding is a pretty tough go, but the metal polish (Meg) he suggested cuts through everything, and leaves little to no scratches. So a big thank you from me, and I'd really suggest dumping all of the recommendations that either don't work or lead to the tales of woe that I've read here. Sanding is not the answer, period.

[number9ine]

Glad this worked for you! Any product labeled "polish" is simply a liquid form of abrasive, just like sandpaper. The only difference is the amount of cut.

There are some jobs that still require a deeper cut and sandpaper is sometimes an ideal first step, but by no means the final step. For example, metal or other liquid polish won't eradicate a nasty rock chip in my headlamp but I can wetsand it out and then use a polish to restore clarity.

I find that for maintenance, PlastX works fine to keep my headlamps in nice shape (no affiliation, it's just easy for me to pick up locally). It also seems to have a hydrophobic component that acts like wax without the residue or fog.

Mark

[drateam]

Glad this worked for you! Any product labeled "polish" is simply a liquid form of abrasive, just like sandpaper. The only difference is the amount of cut.

There are some jobs that still require a deeper cut and sandpaper is sometimes an ideal first step, but by no means the final step. For example, metal or other liquid polish won't eradicate a nasty rock chip in my headlamp but I can wetsand it out and then use a polish to restore clarity.

I find that for maintenance, PlastX works fine to keep my headlamps in nice shape (no affiliation, it's just easy for me to pick up locally). It also seems to have a hydrophobic component that acts like wax without the residue or fog.

Mark

So, Mark, was it your reply on the long posting about the 3M sanding kit? Re-post: Mark, there was someone else writing about metal polish too; that's the member I'm looking for to thank (thanks to you as well). He works in plastics, and seemed dead-set against any sort of sanding, and because of the UV protection you mention, did not want anything but hand work. I'd really like to have him join and/or get in touch with me.

Edited March 17, 2010 by drateam