Have you actually used one?

I know how to get rid of scratches.

I know you like glass better than acrylic.

I even know about toothpaste, mayo, and pole-barn-stove ash.

My question is: Has anyone actually used one of the scratch removal
kits for an acrylic aquarium? What kind, and did it work? How long
did it take (what size aquarium and how much did you do)? How
difficult was it? How were the results? Was it worth it?

Mine is currently empty and I am planning to fix some damage around the
bottom by (you guessed it) coralline algae.


THanks
-
P. Salad

IMHO, i fyour intent on trying to get rid of any scratches, skip all
the home brew crap like mayo and wood ash etc etc, and buy a MIcro
Mesh polishing kit. It all depends on how deep scrates are and how
many so giving a length of time would be hard to do.. I used to do a
ot of acrylic repair on aircraft with real kits and its still not a 15
or 30 minute job, neither is it an hours job........it can take many
hours of rubbing and rubbing....Its not hard, its just very time
consuming......Yes they work if you use the proper abrasives in the
manner directed, skipping a grade here and there just sets you back
with much more rubbing. Its also possible if its done wrong, or the
scratches were deep to create an area that is distorted, due to
changing the thickness and inducing radius and edges, so distortion is
also a possibility........You wll pay a lot more money for a "aquarium
Scratch remover" kit than you will by buying a decent scratch removal
kit like MIcro Mesh........

On 6 Mar 2006 17:50:15 -0800, "P. Salad"
wrote:
I know how to get rid of scratches.

I know you like glass better than acrylic.

I even know about toothpaste, mayo, and pole-barn-stove ash.

My question is: Has anyone actually used one of the scratch removal
kits for an acrylic aquarium? What kind, and did it work? How long
did it take (what size aquarium and how much did you do)? How
difficult was it? How were the results? Was it worth it?

Mine is currently empty and I am planning to fix some damage around the
bottom by (you guessed it) coralline algae.


THanks
-
P. Salad

--
\\\|///
( @ @ )
-----------oOOo(_)oOOo---------------


oooO
---------( )----Oooo----------------
\ ( ( )
\_) ) /
(_/
The original frugal ponder ! Koi-ahoi mates....

George,
I was lazy an used a compound tapplastics.com (they are local to me, so
I just picked up a 4-compound kit) sells on hand drill. It was OK for
microscratshes, but deeper ones it didn't do much good, and using a
drill makes distortion more likely than a flat sanding pad.

Regards
Yuriy

Croosh wrote:

It was OK for
microscratshes, but deeper ones it didn't do much good, and using a
drill makes distortion more likely than a flat sanding pad.

Long ago, I worked as a silversmith. When polishing out scratches, we found that
using a buffing wheel in the same direction as the scratch would deepen the
scratch; the compound just ate the scratch out deeper. Eventually it would
polish out, but you took off a lot of surrounding material. Orienting the whhel
at 90 degrees to scratches polished the scratches out with less material loss.
We got the best results by using a rag to remove polishing compound from the
scratches every minute or two.

I suppose it would be the same in this situation.

George Patterson
Coffee is only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to
your slightly older self.

IIRC the mmicro mesh as well as what i read on acrulic repairs while
in the USAF, stated to go across the scratches at a 90 deg angle, and
then at a 45 etc etc, and not to work the repair all in the same
direction, but keep varying the abrasives angles over the deeper
scratches, until its all blended in.

On Fri, 10 Mar 2006 03:24:05 GMT, George Patterson
wrote:
Croosh wrote:

It was OK for
microscratshes, but deeper ones it didn't do much good, and using a
drill makes distortion more likely than a flat sanding pad.

Long ago, I worked as a silversmith. When polishing out scratches, we found that
using a buffing wheel in the same direction as the scratch would deepen the
scratch; the compound just ate the scratch out deeper. Eventually it would
polish out, but you took off a lot of surrounding material. Orienting the whhel
at 90 degrees to scratches polished the scratches out with less material loss.
We got the best results by using a rag to remove polishing compound from the
scratches every minute or two.

I suppose it would be the same in this situation.

George Patterson
Coffee is only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to
your slightly older self.

--
\\\|///
( @ @ )
-----------oOOo(_)oOOo---------------


oooO
---------( )----Oooo----------------
\ ( ( )
\_) ) /
(_/
The original frugal ponder ! Koi-ahoi mates....