Scratched plastics

[Boyracer]

There was a thread on the old forum but I would like to know any thoughts on the best way to get the scratches out of old plastics please.
Most people would go for 400-800-1200 wet and dry then buff with something.

[lukeb1961]

you start with something coarse, maybe on a 'mouse' sander or whatever. Depends how bad things are. Then you go finer..  switch to wet & dry.  Keep going...  by the time your arms are falling off, your plastics are looking GREAT! Then, out comes the JIF and the lambswool buffing wheel(s)...
It works well. Yes, really :-)

[crs-and-rms]

and i agree thats what i do it all comes down to lots of sanding and polshing which equals sore arms

[BONEHEAD]

sugar soap them first, to clean all the crap out and to look at what you are trying to achieve, be careful on old plastic as they may be just too old , wet and dry them using finer grades as you go then polish them with cutting # 2 and then finally sinpol polish which is great for plastics. cheers BONEHEAD

[Maicojames]

Are you saying you can polish with  machine. I currently have a 1 hp motor(3600 rpm) driving 8", 10" and 12" wheels. I am thinking this would burn plastic-even with a tiny soft wheel. What type of machine do you use to polish the plastic? ..and how fine do you need to go with paper before polishing(600,800,1000,1200,1500,1800,2000)? Us companies advertise a "plastic" compound, but I think it is for hard plastics. What is "sinpol", is it available worldwide, or is it a regional product to Oz?

I have polished aluminum parts quite well( am working on a 74 360 Bultaco now)-but polishing plastic is new to me.

BTW, thank you for any respones, the forum here is top, and frankly in the US forums few if any even speak of these topics.

James

[LWC82PE]

depending on what polish you use depends on how fine you need to go with sand paper. it  also it depends on the type of plastic and how many scratches there are. sometimes i can go down to just 400 then use JIF and it is fine but sometimes i go down to 800 which is usually fine enough. some times i go from 800 to 1200 but i dont use 1200 that much. the key is to get all the course scratches out before going finer

i use a lambswool buffing pad on a rubber pad mounted in a drill and it works fine for me.

ive just picked up a very good PE 250 T rear fender with no splits, large melts or aditional holes or sun fading. unforunatley it has some deep scratches. i could get them all out but then fender would be very thin and i dont want to weaken it that much and have a floppy fender. so ive decided to leave the real deep scratches or gouges and ive just scraped out most of them with a razor blade. it will end up with a as new shine/yellow colour, with no dirty black marks but with a few deep scratches.  i will be happy enough with that for now as it is the best second hand PE rear fender ive ever found.

what is sugar soap?

[Rosco400]

save all the hardwork and go to ballards website and buy some plastic renew, light rub with steelwool, rub it on and presto, nice shiny plastics

[Maicojames]

depending on what polish you use depends on how fine you need to go with sand paper. it  also it depends on the type of plastic and how many scratches there are. sometimes i can go down to just 400 then use JIF and it is fine but sometimes i go down to 800 which is usually fine enough. some times i go from 800 to 1200 but i dont use 1200 that much. the key is to get all the course scratches out before going finer

i use a lambswool buffing pad on a rubber pad mounted in a drill and it works fine for me.

ive just picked up a very good PE 250 T rear fender with no splits, large melts or aditional holes or sun fading. unforunatley it has some deep scratches. i could get them all out but then fender would be very thin and i dont want to weaken it that much and have a floppy fender. so ive decided to leave the real deep scratches or gouges and ive just scraped out most of them with a razor blade. it will end up with a as new shine/yellow colour, with no dirty black marks but with a few deep scratches.  i will be happy enough with that for now as it is the best second hand PE rear fender ive ever found.

what is sugar soap?

What is JIf? in us Jif is a peanut butter sandwich spread..surely you are not polishing with peanut butter? 

[Maicojames]

Ok, thanks to Paul I now know that Jif is a cleanser...I wonder if the US equivalent is Soft Scrub-a kitchen and bath ceanser with mild abrasives. I used it years ago on textured white Falk plastic. I worked well for removing the black marks, but I never noticed it polishing out any scratches. 

I will try with a wool pad on a VSR drill low speed.

Thanks again,  James

[Boyracer]

The Jif with a foam buff pad was a good hint,now all I gotta do is use some Poly glaze and maybe finnish it with some Plexus.

[Maicojames]

http://www.softscrubcleanser.com/index.cfm?page_id=252

This looks like the US equivalent of Jif, though it is likely weaker, less abrasive, and somehow politically correct..

[LWC82PE]

this is what you want

[firko]

James...Any of those mild abrasive household cleaners do the job. Even Ajax (I can't remember if you can get Ajax in the USA). Soft Scrub will do it. What's the politically incorrect conoctation with Jif? Political correctness isn't a big thing here.

[VMX Andrew]

i think jiff is only good for white plastics..i remember using it on my nearly new suzuki rm125 95model and it just absoulutely destroyed the plastics.but luckily twelve months later i won a $1000 dollar makeover contest with the adb magazine......november 1997 to be exact, picture of myself and bike is in that mag if no one believes me....but back to the mr jiffy story .....i think i read somewhere in adb it was lyndon heffernan that spillt the beans and told everyone about it.... he use to ride the white bikes,hence it should only be used on the early yamahas i suppose.... 

[LWC82PE]

i dont know what colours it works on but all i do know is that it defintley works on old yellow suzuki PE/RM plastic fenders and tanks very, very well. i couldnt get it to give the same results on a old blue fuel tank though. not all dirt bike plastics are the same.