How to clean plexiglass at home. How to polish plexiglass at home without help

If you are faced with the problem of scratches on the surface of plexiglass, then you should ask yourself how to remove scratches from plexiglass.

It's real enough simple tools will help eliminate annoying scratches on the surface of plexiglass.

Please note that you can remove scratches on those glasses that are not used in optics, since after elimination, distortions can most likely be obtained, which will negatively affect vision. In other situations, getting rid of scratches is relatively easy.

How to remove scratches - process features

First of all, you will need to purchase fine grit sandpaper and special means for polishing. Delete upper layer from the surface using prepared sandpaper.

Be sure to take into account that removing a scratch from plexiglass is a rather lengthy process that requires your diligence and patience. If you have a deep enough scratch on the plexiglass to make this hard work easier, it is better to start cleaning the plexiglass with a larger sandpaper. In the process of action, depending on whether layer after layer will be erased, we reduce the graininess of the paper.

At the time of completion of the work for grinding plexiglass, preference is given to “zero”, that is, sandpaper of the smallest sizes. On this this stage ends, but the scratch has not yet disappeared, that is, you should proceed to the next step - polishing. With the help of polishing, we will clean the plexiglass from a large number of small scratches.

Products for polishing plexiglass

There are many on the market today various means for polishing acrylic, but among them the ideal option is GOI paste (State Optical Institute).

It can be found in all building hypermarkets, building departments of markets. Next, your actions should be as follows: we apply the polishing compound to the surface to be treated, then proceed to polish it with a small piece of cloth. Damage must be polished hard and vigorously. The more effort you spend on grinding, the more effective the result will be.

An excellent analogue of GOI paste is car polish. But what you need to pay attention to is the choice of high-quality car polish. Before use, it is advisable to check how this tool will affect unnecessary area plexiglass. If the check was successful, then the polish is applied to the plane of the plexiglass and actively polished with its felt.

Services at a car service

Of course, it is more correct to replace the damaged glass than to try to eliminate scratches.

It is much easier, quite simple and fast, but often too expensive.
If you do not want to polish plexiglass yourself, then you can contact a car service for help. It doesn't matter if your radio or other Plexiglas product is damaged, you can contact a car service to clean it from damage.

Of course, these are material costs, so it’s worth comparing all the pros and cons: replacing glass and not thinking about processing it, or grinding and polishing plexiglass in a car service.

Now you will not have a question - how to clean plexiglass? You know that acrylic scratches should be fairly easy to clean up. Removing damage will require some effort from you, but the result will please you. In order not to face such a problem in the future, consider that protecting the plexiglass surface can save you from this.

Organic glass is a thermoplastic material known for its impeccable quality. It has a high level of transparency and significantly surpasses ordinary glass in this, freely transmits light rays without any distortion, clouding or other defects.

What you need to know about polishing plexiglass? No matter how durable and reliable the plexiglass material is, it will still show minor cracks and minor scratches and cuts. This is due to mechanical impact during its operation. Although polishing plexiglass at home is not a super difficult process, it is quite a lengthy, meticulous and patient task.

The main thing that the polisher should know is that aggressive, strong chemicals and substances should not be used when polishing. If polished with them, the glass may become dull, cloudy and not transparent.

Necessary tools and materials

Many who came across this material wondered how to polish plexiglass on their own without resorting to the expensive help of a professional. It is possible to polish plexiglass at home quickly and efficiently without significant costs. Moreover, the result will be significantly better than with machine processing, due to the rapid heating and melting of the surface.

For this you will need the following materials and tools:

A roll of masking (paper) tape;
Paper;
Sandpaper grade 800 and 2000;
Soft cloth;
Blade knife or sharp scalpel.

1. In order for the polishing of plexiglass at home to proceed conveniently and reliably, it is necessary to remove the processed glass from the product.

2. First of all, it is necessary to protect the edges of the glass with adhesive tape, pasting it from the ends along the perimeter with an overlap of 1 - 2 mm. If for some reason it is impossible to remove the glass from the product, then work like this, but glue all non-glass parts of the product. So that at the end of the work the glue does not remain on the glass, use a proven high-quality adhesive tape. Although we have already described in a previous article. After that, round the corners and remove the remaining adhesive tape by cutting them off with a scalpel.

3. When all of the above are done preparatory work Let's move on to polishing. We take the skin 800 and begin to grind the surface of the glass with a small addition of water. This process should be uniform and accurate. When the sanding is completed, we wipe the surface and see what we have.

Oddly enough, plexiglass should be completely opaque. There is no need to be afraid of this, it should be so. If the glass is not evenly opaque, then continue sanding until you achieve uniformity, and also carefully monitor the absence of ruts on the surface.

4. When the desired result is achieved, take the 2000 sandpaper and continue sanding with it. You will notice that the glass starts to become more transparent. Over its entire area, scratches and various cracks should not be observed. If you find any defects on the glass, sand again with 800 sandpaper until they disappear, and then again with 2000 sandpaper.

5. Next, you need a polishing paste in in large numbers which can be purchased almost anywhere. Apply the paste to a piece of soft cloth and continue sanding with gentle measured movements. Very quickly you will notice that your plexiglass is getting an intensifying luster.

6. After that, you will have the opportunity to carefully examine the glass for any residual defects. If you find any, you will have to repeat all the grinding steps again. If everything suits you, you can remove the tape and make sure that he did not leave any glue on the edges of the glass.

7. If you removed the glass before work, then after removing the tape, you need to grind the edges of the glass in the same way. After that, your organic glass will shine like new.

In addition to the above method, there is a good opportunity to polish plexiglass at home using felt and GOI paste. If you do not have felt on hand, it can be easily replaced with a piece of felt boots, a woolen insole, or an ordinary cotton pad. The method is quite simple: apply GOI paste on plexiglass and treat the surface with one of the above materials until the desired result is obtained.

If the processed organic glass is quite old, then you need to use a fine emery cloth, moisten the surface with a spray bottle and make sure that it does not dry out. After that, wipe with a soft cloth and rub to a shine with GOI paste.

You can also use car polish for polishing. Apply it to the glass and rub it with felt. But, it is worth noting that before that, try the polish on small area glass and make sure it doesn't damage it. After all this, rub the surface with any liquid oil, from machine to sunflower.

If you have a burner available, you can polish the glass by first treating it with zero sandpaper, and then evenly burn the surface with a burner. But be careful not to stay too long in any place, so as not to singe the plexiglass.

Unique polishing agent

Any polishing method has its pros and cons. For example, GOI paste contains chromium oxide, which penetrates into any surface irregularities, from where it is very difficult to get it. Also, glass can be ruined if rather large grains appear in the GOI paste. Therefore, it can be easily replaced with another substance, while care must be taken that this substance does not contain ammonia, due to which the glass can become faded.

You can make your own unique plexiglass polish. You will need a can of any spray, hot water and wine white vinegar. Mix water with vinegar 1: 1 and fill a can with this mixture. This will give the glass a smooth finish and prevent mold and mildew.

You can also polish plexiglass with various toothpastes, powders or chalk with a soft cloth.

Alternative grinding methods

For grinding, you need a polishing wheel, paste, chalk, sandpaper, but at the same time you always need to prepare felt or other necessary fabric.

Crystal clearness and dazzling brilliance are not always achieved from glass. Sometimes the task is to get frosted glass, for example, for some kind of musical equipment or just to make original various items home or office interior. To do this, glass is treated with larger abrasive materials, for example, sandpaper fine grit or with the use of chemical matting.

Note to beginners!

When polishing organic glass, you must always remember about your own protection and safety for your health. For example, when grinding with GOI paste, you need to know that it can be severely poisoned if it gets into the internal organs.

Because of this, you must be careful to maintain moisture during the polishing process and avoid the formation of dust that is easy to inhale. It is best to use funds personal protection: respirator, gloves, goggles. This will prevent poisonous substances from entering your body and polishing plexiglass at home will not harm you.

Video: POLISHING PLUS GLASS

During the processing of plexiglass, for example, sometimes rough rough edges remain after cutting, or cracks and defects appear after some time of use. Often, a product made of polymer glass may completely lose its original appearance, for example, become dull or distort the image. Therefore, the problem of returning Plexiglas to its original form will sooner or later affect many. For example, it is often necessary to clean and polish plexiglass in showers and other accessories in bathrooms.

Why polish plexiglass

One of the main features of plexiglass is its transparency, due to which synthetic glass is successfully used instead of real glass. Therefore, as soon as plexiglass loses its transparency properties, it turns into ordinary plastic. Of course, in some cases, for example, when the scratches are deep, and the surface has become too dull, you can no longer return the original state of the plastic glass, but it is not at all necessary to polish to a perfect shine. It will be possible to simply remove clearly strongly visible defects, and then update your surface with a color film. Properly glued film will change your product, and at the same time strengthen the glass.

Grinding process

If over time cracks, scratches form on your product, and the transparency property is no longer observed, then use the tips on the video and do your own polishing at home. Without a doubt, such work will require some patience from you and will take more than one hour of time, but all this will be replenished with an updated look of the plexiglass surface.

If there is not enough experience, then it is better to carry out the polishing procedures manually so as not to completely spoil the plexiglass.

In order to correctly complete all the steps, you need to prepare everything necessary tool, and remove the glass from the product. When the glass surface is outside the product, the process will be greatly simplified in time and will become much more convenient. The working surface is glued with adhesive tape, which must be of high quality so as not to leave traces with glue.

First, the surface must be sanded. To do this, you need a skin and water. You can choose the skin yourself, for example, 800 is suitable.
The grinding process begins with cleaning the surface with sandpaper. You need to work carefully, and most importantly evenly. The surface is sanded until the plexiglass becomes dull. In the process, you need to pay attention to the manifestation of various defects, for example, potholes.
After the glass has become completely opaque, change the number of the skin, now you need the number 2000. Already in the process, you will see how the glass becomes transparent.
Sand the surface until the plexiglass is as clear as possible. If at the end of the work you notice more defects, then switch back to the skin number 800 and repeat the operation.
Then the surface is wiped.

polishing process

For the final step, additional tools will be required, for example, plexiglass polishing paste, it can be purchased at hardware store by consulting with the seller.

The polish is applied to a fabric with a soft base, with which the surface is polished. uniform movements. The process is considered complete when the glass becomes shiny. We remove the adhesive tape and insert our plastic glass into the product.

Polishing products

The success of the entire enterprise depends largely on right choice polishing paste. The paste must match the brand of plexiglass, and reviews on the use of polish for surface treatment vary widely. Therefore, we recommend using proven products, in particular, GOI paste. GOI paste got its name in honor of the State Optical Institute, where it was developed in the 30s of the last century for polishing optical glasses, known for their highest requirements. Of course, GOI also has a number of disadvantages, for example, it contains chromium oxide, which should also not be forgotten when working.

For our needs, GOI of medium grain size is suitable, which can be recognized by its green color.

In fact, many modern facilities can cope with rubbing the surface, you just need to carefully read the instructions. So the polishing paste for plexiglass should not contain ammonia, which gives the surface a porosity that is incompatible with transparency. Excessive graininess also harms the surface.

To polish polymer glass, you can even use tooth powder, which is applied with a cloth.

Polishing methods

If you have sufficient skill, you can use a grinder, both special and improvised, for which you can adapt an electric drill by equipping it with a special nozzle. In this case, it is not necessary to use high speeds, in order to avoid overheating of the surface. Overheating can result in surface microcracks that adversely affect transparency.

And what to do in the case when all the above attempts did not bring the desired result? In this case, experts advise painting the surface or using a colored film.

POLISHING OF PLUS GLASS AND OTHER PLASTICS

Sometimes, in the manufacture of home-made gizmos from plexiglass and other plastics - various caskets, puzzles and other things - it is required to polish the product. How to do it! P. ANTONOV, Moscow.

Polishing is usually preceded by grinding, which removes gross defects. Grind products with emery bars, sandpaper and coarse abrasive powders.

You need to know that there can be two types of plastics: those that can soften and melt when heated - thermoplastic plastics (plexiglas, polyethylene, nylon) and non-melting - thermosetting plastics (textolite, carbolite, melalite).

When polishing, a very thin layer of plastic is removed. Preliminary (rough) polishing is carried out in a wet or dry way. Wet is more often used for thermoplastics, for mechanical polishing. Plastics are polished with a thick paste prepared from finely ground pumice or tripoli and water. Having finished polishing, the paste is washed off with water and proceed to fine (final) polishing.

For dry polishing, pastes of abrasive powders (pumice, emery, corundum, carborundum, tripoli, chalk, chromium oxide, aluminum oxide, crocus) with various binding additives are usually used: beeswax, wax-like substances (ceresin, paraffin), oleic acid, machine oil, spindle oil, vaseline. Sometimes, in order to better hold the paste on polishing wheels, 5-7% of rosin is added to it by weight of the waxy component.

Composition of polishing pastes industrial production shown in the table. Such pastes are commercially available. Pasta "Lik" is especially good. It does not use chromium oxide, which has green color, and crystalline alumina. This paste, for example, polishes the plastic keys of accordions and other musical instruments, it does not stain the plastic, it gives a mirror polished surface.

For polishing parts made of thermoplastic plastics, N2 1, 4 and 5 pastes, as well as Lik paste, are recommended, for thermosetting - any of those given in the table.

Polishing pastes are easy to prepare yourself by purchasing the necessary components at hardware stores and chemical stores. Slava”, “Pemoksol”, “Universal Paste”. These products should be washed well in a large amount of water, let the water settle, drain it, and dry the sediment - pumice powder.

Polishing a surface with large flaws should be started with a coarse paste, then moving on to a finer one. During polishing, the paste softens under the action of heat and is evenly distributed over the surface of the part and the polishing pad or wheel. After polishing, the paste should be washed off with soap and water or gasoline, a soft absorbent cotton swab.

In manual polishing, the paste is applied to the surface of soft felt, flannel and other soft materials, which for convenience can be fixed on a bar made of cork, rubber, foam rubber.

At large volume For work, it is advisable to use an electric drive, on the shaft of which discs-circles are fixed from several layers of materials such as cloth, twill, flannel, felt - for preliminary polishing and coarse calico, bike, madapolam, muslin - for the final one. Discs should be moderately resilient, but not hard. Thickness of disks - 60-100 mm.

Grind and polish products by gently pressing them and moving them evenly up and down the disc, avoiding overheating. Thermoplastics are polished at a speed of 1000-1,500 rpm, and thermosetting plastics - up to 2,000 rpm. Thermoplastics require softer polishing materials than thermosets.

During mechanical processing of plexiglass (polymethyl methacrylate) and polystyrene, small cracks, called "silver", may appear on the surface. To remove them, after polishing, it is recommended to slowly heat the product in the oven to a temperature of 70-80 ° C, hold it at this temperature for two to four hours, and then gradually cool it to room temperature within 30-60 minutes.

Candidate of Technical Sciences V. IVANOV.

"Science and Life", 7, 1975

With a huge number of advantages, organic glass still has disadvantages. And one of the main disadvantages is a high tendency to mechanical damage. Scratches on such a surface appear quite quickly if you do not apply a special protective film. It is possible to scratch thin plexiglass even when cleaning it, for example, with powdered detergents.

In general, organic glass is an excellent replacement for real glass. Its use has the following advantages:

High light transmission;
Five times more impact resistance than glass
Plexiglas is much lighter than ordinary glass;
High resistance to harmful factors environment, it is also a frost-resistant material;
Possesses electrical insulating properties;
Eco-friendly, non-toxic material, etc.

Scratches on plexiglass are no longer a problem!

Removing scratches from the surface of plexiglass does not require such cardinal methods as using a drill with a grinding disc, it is enough to polish the glass. This is pretty easy to do on your own at home. You will be satisfied with the work done, unless of course the scratches are too deep. Otherwise, you can contact a car service where organic glass is polished using special polishing machines.

Also, polishing organic glass will restore its original luster and transparency.

Preparing the plexiglass surface for polishing

In order to start polishing the orgsurface at home, you need to remove the glass from the structure. This will greatly simplify your task, because the polishing process is quite laborious and does not tolerate haste. If it is not possible to remove the glass, the surfaces adjacent to it should be pasted over with adhesive tape. After that, clean the plexiglass from dirt and dust with a washing gel or spray and microfiber.

To perform the ritual of removing scratches from the plexiglass surface, you will need the following materials and tools:

Soft sandpaper;
A piece of soft cloth or felt.

Step-by-step instructions for polishing plexiglass

Step 1 Wet the surface to be polished with water using a sponge or small cloth.

Step 2. Start polishing the glass with sandpaper until the surface becomes matte.

Step 3 Wipe the glass with a soft cloth, then moisten the surface again and start polishing the glass with a fine sandpaper. As a result, the glass will become more transparent, and the smallest scratches will be removed from the surface.

Step 4 Follow the steps below to remove deeper scratches. Wet the surface. Apply thin layer polish or polishing paste, thoroughly mixing it before use. Continue polishing in a progressive motion, spreading the mixture evenly over the surface. soft cloth. In just a minute you will see an unsurpassed result.