NGC - (or not) Best way to polish a totally scratched windshield

[ohiorider]

My old R100GS is cosmetically in nice condition.  But under some bright sunlight, the small windscreen showed a bunch of scratches, most likely caused by me attempting to 'clean' it when I was on the road.

It is easily removed from the bike.  My question is ...... can the scratches in my plastic windscreen be removed by polishing, or am I simply wasting my time and making it worse?

Suggestions?

[Gliderjohn]

One of those headlight cover restore kits might do it.
GliderJohn

[Rich A]

It's messy, but you can use a hand held auto buffer and some plastic polishing compound to get rid of small scratches.

Rich

[Markcarovilli]

1. Wash well with soapy water. 
 
2. Take a bucket of water and put in a few drops of dish soap. 
 
3. Take a piece of 400 or 600 grit wet and dry sandpaper and wet-sand the affected surface
to a uniform haze of scratches. 
 
4. Then wet-sand with 1500 grit. Now, take a machine buffer on low speed with a foam
polishing pad and buff the surface with 3M™ Perfect-It™ Rubbing Compound (PN
06085/06086) until you attain a fairly good clarity.
 
5. Wipe clean with water, dry, and check clarity. If the clarity is not clear as plate glass,
then proceed to #6.
 
6. Buff again with a finer compound like 3M Perfect-It III #05933. Then clean and check
again for clarity. 
 
7. Still not clear enough? Still see some scratches? do the process again but start with 1000
grt and work back up. 


Bob, I have the compound and polisher if you want to try this.  I cribbed the above from the web somewhere....

Mark

[cwiseman]

Lemon Pledge, give it a try you might be greatly surprised. Its the only thing I clean a windshield with and it will make a worn screen look much better.

[pete mcgee]

If its acrylic based you have a chance, if its polycarbonate it wont polish just scratch.
Try the above posts suggestions and see how it goes.

[Chuck in Indiana]

If its acrylic based you have a chance, if its polycarbonate it wont polish just scratch.
Try the above posts suggestions and see how it goes.

Back in another lifetime, I was a modelmaker for a GM company, and I've made countless head and tail light prototypes. No problem to buff out acrylic. You'll never get optical clarity on polycarbonate, though.. although you can get it good enough for all practical purposes.
Your local airport will possibly have a kit for aircraft windshields. It works just like Markcarovilli posted. Many finer grits of wet or dry paper. It's labor intensive, but you can make it look new.

[boatdetective]

It's a PITA. You cannot skip any grits with sandpaper- you need to gradually go from step to step- 400/600/800/1000/1500

Definitely use wet or dry.

One trick, after finishing off with 3M perfect it, is to dip the part in pledge multisurface floor finish. it's a liquid acrylic that will give it a really nice shine.

[ohiorider]

Thanks for all the good advice.  This will be a nice project to work on this winter in the warmth of the house instead of in the garage.

[canuguzzi]

Save yourself a bunch of effort. Take the windscreen to a detail shop, in 30 minutes you'll have a crystal clear windscreen.

I know it does fall in with the DIY thing but it saves you a lot of time that will be messy, give you questionable results and in the end leave you wondering what you did.

Wet sanding is OK but time consuming and gives spotty results unless you have good equipment. Using fine grit sandpaper is not the way to go, compounds are, you are dealing with plastics that have curves and with sandpaper it is so easy to screw them up.

A pro polishing job might cost you $15-20, messing it up the price of a new one.

[boatdetective]

Save yourself a bunch of effort. Take the windscreen to a detail shop, in 30 minutes you'll have a crystal clear windscreen.

I know it does fall in with the DIY thing but it saves you a lot of time that will be messy, give you questionable results and in the end leave you wondering what you did.

Wet sanding is OK but time consuming and gives spotty results unless you have good equipment. Using fine grit sandpaper is not the way to go, compounds are, you are dealing with plastics that have curves and with sandpaper it is so easy to screw them up.

A pro polishing job might cost you $15-20, messing it up the price of a new one.

 :1:  After messing with my faceshield- I would strongly recommend this advice.

[Chuck in Indiana]

and gives spotty results unless you have good equipment.

The good equipment is your hand. 

[old as dirt 2]

you can spend almost as much on doing a great job of buffing and polishing costs as you would in just getting a replacement shield.

[hooah54]

I took a hint from an old timer and got ultra brite toothpaste and a microfiber cloth to the windshield on my R1150R.  No kidding...it worked.  took two cleanings but It is really clear now.

[LaMojo]

Silver polish such as Weiman silver cream works great on knocking off a light haze or swirls on the shield.   If the scratches are too deep- nothing will help.

[johnr]

Had a similar problem with the instrument panel of a Rover SD1 I had. Must have been cleaned at some point with steel wool and chrome polish!  Some instruments were unreadable. On advice I took the offending bits of plastic to a jeweler. Came back looking like new. Cheap too, though I don't know how much a whole screen would cost.

[canuguzzi]

BTW, on a good clear windshield, a good cleaner is shaving cream. Works on the patent leather of brimmed military hats too, learned from academy days. Leaves a nice smell on your faceshields too and anything plastic.

[Zoom Zoom]

Novus used to, and probably still does make a 3 step scratch remove. They are bottles of liquid resembling wax. "NOVUS Plastic Polish Scratch Remover Cleaner Kit" is what it is called.

http://www.aerostich.com/novus-polishes-set-of-three.html

John Henry

[boatdetective]

Novus used to, and probably still does make a 3 step scratch remove. They are bottles of liquid resembling wax. "NOVUS Plastic Polish Scratch Remover Cleaner Kit" is what it is called.

http://www.aerostich.com/novus-polishes-set-of-three.html

John Henry

Save your money. Very stingy, small bottles and questionable effectiveness.

[Chuck in Indiana]

http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/cspages/micromeshstd.php?recfer=12074

There are others. They work. They are labor intensive.