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How do I polish chromed plastic?
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Re: chromed plastic
What do you mean by polish? Scratch removal? Apply wax? Or actually what meg's refers to as polish...no cleaning ability...just surface enhancement?There's no reason to become alarmed, and we hope you'll enjoy the rest of your flight. By the way, is there anyone on board who knows how to fly a plane? -
Re: chromed plastic
Are you talking about the same polishing as these two old plastic chrome plated center caps. Sorry about the poor pic these were took about 3 or so years ago. With a disposable camera then later on when I got a digital I layed them down and took the picture. LOL!! only way I could post up though.
The center cap one the left looked like the one on the right just how I showed my before and afters back then.
If you can get or have a bench grinder or a buffer/polisher-like the bench grinder then you can do that very thing. Go to lowes and back in their tool world they have these little tubes of buffing compound (for polishing metals)and small 4'' buff wheels (get the soft flannel type) you can do exactly what your asking.
But for pastics you need a buffer/polisher that turns no more then 1750 rpm's! (because any more rpms then that will heat up the plastic faster then a rotary will burn through paint)
If you interested about more of this type of polishing and the process just let me now.''USE THE LEAST AGGRESSIVE PRODUCT TO GET THE JOB DONE RIGHT''
You Don't Know What You Can Do Until You Try '' TECHNIQUE IS EVERYTHING''
Test Hoods Are Cheap And Most Of The Time Free
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Re: chromed plastic
look, I own a civic just like this, and do you see the silver wing? just above the honda logo?
that' s what I mean, I want to know how can I remove scratches from it,
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Re: chromed plastic
Hey bluher
No I couldn't see what your talking about in that pic, can you give me an up-close pic of what your talking about. ( THE PROBLEM IN QUESTION)
To remove a scratch any scratch you must first remove the top layer of the material the scratch is on or in to the bottom depth of whatever it is in to remove it.
Now the problem with this is that your taking a chances on maybe making the problem worse, and in your case were talking about plastic that has a plated chrome layer over and in some of my practices of doing these polishes I have went through the chrome layer on the plastic more often then I care to mention.
And like paint if you can catch your finger nail on this scratch the only thing you can do is trying to improve slightly or filling in this scratch with something for the type of whatever the material maybe or sometimes it's just better off leaving well enough alone.
Sorry I didn't give you a direct answer but unless I could see first hand and up-close with my LumiLoupe magnifier I don't think it's possible to give you a perfect fix that would be honest and helpful.''USE THE LEAST AGGRESSIVE PRODUCT TO GET THE JOB DONE RIGHT''
You Don't Know What You Can Do Until You Try '' TECHNIQUE IS EVERYTHING''
Test Hoods Are Cheap And Most Of The Time FreeComment
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Re: chromed plastic
Maybe check out this short thread which tells me "be very careful".
Re: Scratches on chrome plastic trim
It might be that you cannot fix this at least in a way that it's going to look original or new/better. It depends upon the how the surface of this is actually made, that is if there is clear plastic over chrome 'look' actually is the exterior or most outer surface of the component.
The point being is this plastic surface might not lend itself to being abraded with the end result having it look good, that is no more scratches.
This article kind of goes into depth on what you're up against.
What it means to remove a scratch out of anything...
I'll send an e-mail to Mike Pennington as I think he's had some experience with removing scratches out of plastic chrome.
***Update***
Checked with Jason Rose, Tom MacDonald and Mike Pennington and they all concur that this type of plastic doesn't like to be abraded with the end-result having it look good and or back to its original look without any scratches.
You can abrade it as you've found out and remove scratches but you leave new scratches behind. That's the reason for the link to the article we posted it, it explains that some materials and some coatings don't lend themselves well to being abraded with the end-result having the surface look good when you're done.
Not a fun answer to give you but that's the reality of it.
Jason Rose said you could give our PlastX a try using a piece of soft, 100% cotton terry cloth but no guarantees as to whether it's going to work or not. PlastX is a product everyone should have in their garage so if it doesn't work you'll still be able to use this product for headlights lenses in the future, (or DVDs).
It might be that if you want the car to look right you'll have to get a new grill.
__________________
Mike Phillips
Office: 800-869-3011 x206
Mike.Phillips@Autogeek.net
"Find something you like and use it often"Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It's courage that counts.
by John Wooden
'88 HondaComment
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