Slightly off: polishing really thin clear plastic?

[Eric The Viking]

Since folks here seem to know about abrasives...

About 35 years ago, my father-in-law gave my wife (not even my girlfriend then!) a nice brass carriage clock before she went off to university. It was modern, with a quartz movement and alarm, and an engraved brass dial.

Someone (not me!), knocked it off the dressing table and snapped of several of the screws (it disintegrated). She's hung onto it for years hoping it could be repaired, but finally threw it out when we emptied our bedroom before decorating. She doesn't know I rescued the bits...

... I'm going to make a new hardwood case to take the undamaged innards and face, and I would like to use the "glass" which is actually, probably, polycarbonate.

It has scratches from normal wear+tear, none of them deep. I've tried my usual tricks for polishing up plastic, and have significantly reduced their visibilty. That was DuraGlit followed by toothpaste, both used really gently on a fingertip.

So it's worked, but I'm left with even finer parallel scratches from the cutting-back, but no finer abrasive to use to work those down to nothing. You can see them with a powerful lens (I use 50mm camera lenses backwards).

Any suggestions for a finer polish? What I've done already would be good enough for opaque surfaces, but it isn't quite for this, and I also fear the plastic might also "bloom" in strong UV if I don't get it mirror smooth to start with.

Should I use some sort of glass polish? Am I just using the wrong brand of toothpaste?

All thoughts appreciated.

E.

PS: I'd replace with fresh perspex, and may yet do just that, but it matches the clock face well so I'm reluctant.

 

[fiacha]

There is a product called Polywatch which is popular with the watch collectors for restoring faces. Google has plenty of links showing before / after demos from genuine users.

 

[marcros]

what about micromesh? It was designed for polishing the windscreens of jet planes, I believe.

 

[david123]

You could try jewellers rouge

 

[MIGNAL]

Novus plastic polish. Some of the French polishers use it to turn nice warm wood into cold, hard, incredibly super glossy glass.

 

[AndyT]

I have no experience of using them on plastic but I have some jeweller's rouge, Rustin's burnishing cream and Brasso if you want to try some more experiments.
Also some micromesh.

 

[iNewbie]

Novus plastic polish. Some of the French polishers use it to turn nice warm wood into cold, hard, incredibly super glossy glass.

This.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Thanks all.

I have jeweller's rouge and Brasso and Autosol, but I think all three are a bit too abrasive (I used DuraGlit as it only has a tiny bit of abrasive, and even then it was too much).

I'll give Novus a go. I thought you guys would know

 

[swb58]

What about the stuff used for polishing the scratches on CD's?

 

[Eric The Viking]

In my household, that's usually toothpaste. As long as you take care to do it radially.

If this Novus stuff is as good as cracked up to be, the toothpaste may be relegated to merely cleaning teeth!

I've ordered some Novus, expected at the end of next week. I'll report back.

 

[david123]

Look forward to that

 

[jimi43]

Micromesh.

Jimi