Car Model Magazine

Polished plastic headlights with their own hands

Like everything in this world, new headlights are subject to aging. Over time, they are covered with numerous scratches and rubs, which does not improve their brightness. And then the car owner is faced with a difficult dilemma - whether to buy new headlights, polished old ones on their own, or ask for help from specially trained people. Clearly, for the domestic production of cars in the best possible first option is: buy, set and forget. Rather big, the cost of lamps for cars sometimes makes choosing between the options of self-polishing or buffing a car service. But before you take your hard earned money in a beauty salon, it is worth examining this article. Perhaps after this, many will decide that on their own to solve the problem completely it can do. As often happens, the path of least resistance - a simple scrubbing headlights special polish - gives a quick, but, alas, short-lived results. The fact that such pastes do not remove the layer of plastic, but only fill existing cracks that will not permanently store the result. Indeed stable result can be achieved if the pre-use abrasives, and then zapolirovat surface. In this case, polished lamps can be enjoyed for several years (up to five, depending on operating conditions). Naturally, this technique can not be repeated indefinitely, since after each wall lights will become thinner. In order to do the job for 15 minutes, you'd be a happy owner of grinder or drill with an attachment for grinding. Manual labor will have twice as long. Before starting the work lamp is removed, thoroughly washed and wiped dry. If there is no desire to remove the headlamp, you should carefully protect the adjacent parts of the machine. In the first stage is aligned with the surface and carried out a rough polish. To this end, soaked in water sandpaper 1500 for the smallest speed (if used sander or a drill), remove the top, he's the most damaged layer of polycarbonate. Polish dry with high turnover will lead to heat lamps, which will exacerbate turbidity due to the interpenetration of the different layers of material. The next stage - the application of grinding wheels or skins with grit 2000 and then 4000. Upon completion of the surface becomes even more murky - should not be scared, so it should be. Finally, the final stage - directly polishing. In addition to the polishers need foam circle (preferably hard and soft), as well as abrasive paste (also better to use two kinds of pasta - more rough and debugging, such as pasta 3M No. 17 and 75). Initially, use a coarser structure and rigid foam disk, then finishing with a soft disk. You can also divide the work into three stages: rough abrasive treatment, a mixture of paste, lapping compound. Upon completion of polishing, headlight wash, wipe dry and enjoy its transformative view.