Anyone try it? Saw a write up here...
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Anyone try it? Saw a write up here...
...Originally posted by Matt-B -
Headlight polishing experiances.
I have tried the comparable "hand polish only" kit from Napa, it came with the same grits of 3m wetsandpaper, as well as a polishing cloth and some very fine emulsion polish. I used the kit on the headlights on my subie, they were cloudy as milk- unsafe to drive really. After 2 hours of doing it by hand (1 hour per side) there was a huge improvement in amount of light being shed, and something of an improvement in appearance. Having done it once however, I used a completely different method the next time around on my brother's subie.
The first step with the coarsest grit is what removes the most material, it sands away the plastic untill the pock marks are even with the rest of the lens cover, the more overall material you remove, the more uniform the surface will be in the end. As this step is all about mass removal, I would have put the wetpaper on my drill with a backing disc and gone to town.
The next to grits are simply to polish out all the swirl marks and sanding marks left by the first step. I would prefer to do those by hand, wrapping my wetpaper around a half inch rubber hose and working them up and down and side to side. I find the stiff rubber hose or even pvc pipe allows you to get much more even pressure with the paper on a curved surface like a headlight cover than any othersanding block. The up and down then side to side effecetivly elminates the swirl marks, and if you were just to clean up after this step with some glass cleaner, your lights would look good.
The last step is using the polish, the goo included with the kit was fine, and the .5oz bottle was probably enough for 20 cars. There are other optical plastic polishes out there, I am sure they are just about the same. For the best cosmetic appearence, I wouldn't hesitate to put it on a polishing pad and attach it to a buffer or a drill. It is extremely fine, and so long as you don't lean into it, you won't create swirlmarks. I try to emulate a random orbit sander with my movement, which is easier said than done. All in all, it turned out a lot better on my brother's car than it did on mine. -
I got the pads from pepboys, did the lenses of my DD, i'd rather buy new lenses for my e30 though. wasnt too happy with the end result.Comment
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