Do-it-yourself plexiglass polishing. Useful information on self-polishing plexiglass

How to polish plexiglass

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.

Plexiglas has been widely used in the production of all kinds of shop windows, partitions, special viewing windows, accessories for cars, telescopes, lamps, microscopes, and medicine, construction, industry and many other industries cannot do without it. However, for all its advantages, in order for it to last for quite a long time, it needs conscientious care. Next, consider how to polish plexiglass.

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 a polisher should know is that aggressive, strong chemical reagents and substances should not be used in 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.

To do this, you will need the following materials and tools:

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

How to polish plexiglass with your own hands?

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. To prevent glue from remaining on the glass, use a proven high-quality adhesive tape. 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.

Polishing Plexiglas with GOI Paste

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 fine sandpaper, wet the surface with a spray bottle and make sure that it does not dry. 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, test the polish on a small area of ​​\u200b\u200bglass and make sure that it does not spoil 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 positive and negative sides. 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 by 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 obtain frosted glass, for example, for some kind of musical equipment or just to make various home or office interior items original. For this, glass is processed with larger abrasive materials e.g. with fine grit sandpaper or 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.

http://vseprostroiku.ru

Many people ask the question - how is plexiglass grinding done at home? This procedure is often extremely necessary, because many home craftsmen try to create various details from this unique material with their own hands.

Grinding can be done at home, without the use of any specialized equipment. You can get by with what you have on hand. There are several ways you can sand the ends of a Plexiglas product, or the front surface, to the desired sheen.

Depending on the method of grinding and polishing acrylic you choose, it will depend on what tools and memory aids you will need. It is also worth noting that the conditions in which the work will be performed are important, and the dimensions of the product are also important.

General requirements for work

Acrylic polishing is performed using low-abrasive compounds. Do not use aggressive substances, they can permanently damage the surface. It is also worth noting that acrylic processing will be easiest to carry out when the part is separated from the overall structure. If this is not possible, then the adjacent parts will need to be protected with mounting tape.

As a rule, if the cultivated area is small, then the work can be done manually. Much easier and less expensive and faster to use a grinder.

Processing with sandpaper and polishing paste

For this method you will need:

• Sandpaper, grit 2000 and 800;
• A piece of soft fabric, felt and felt are suitable;
• Polishing paste.

So, first of all, you will need to use sandpaper grit size 800. The element to be treated can be pretreated with water. As a result of your actions, small scratches should disappear, the surface will become smooth and matte. Do not be upset, do not think that you have spoiled the part, this is how it should be, the main thing is that the surface of the part is neat and even.

Now you can proceed to the second stage, process the part with sandpaper with a grit of 2000. As a result of the work, you will notice that the acrylic will become transparent. In order to improve the effect - you can use polishes.

The polish must be applied to a piece of soft cloth, and then treat the entire surface with even movements. Continue your actions until you achieve the desired result.

Using GOI paste

Below we will tell you how to polish any part made of a material - plexiglass using GOI paste. This method is very similar to the one described above, but instead of polish, you must use GOI paste. The technology is the same as described above. First of all, it is necessary to process the surface using sandpaper, and then, to achieve the desired gloss result, use GOI paste.

With the use of auto polishes

If you were unable to purchase GOI paste or other polishing paste, you can use various means from a series of car cosmetics that are used to eliminate small scratches and damage.

To get started, apply an auto polish to the screen or part being processed, and then proceed to grinding using a soft cloth, you can use a grinder by putting a special nozzle on it.

Use of improvised materials

In addition to the methods described above, you can grind acrylic and improvised materials, for example, it can be tooth powder or chalk. To do this, it will be necessary to pour the powder on a piece of cloth, use a cotton pad, place it between the grinding wheel and the cloth. Now perform neat circular motions, thereby you will be able to grind the part.

As you can see, there are quite a lot of methods for grinding plexiglass, you can choose the most suitable one for you and radically change the acrylic part, which has lost its previously attractive appearance.

The polymeric solid transparent material is called Plexiglas. Although there are quite a few other names - plexiglass, acryplast, carboglass and others. It is often used instead of ordinary glass in the automotive, aviation and other industries. But with all the advantages of the material, it happens that it becomes cloudy or damaged. And then the problem arises, how to polish plexiglass with your own hands.

General requirements for the performance of work

Polishing is carried out with low-abrasive compounds. And at the same time it is necessary to avoid the use of aggressive substances. It is worth considering that it is easiest to do the work when the plexiglass is removed from the structure. When this is not possible, adjacent areas of the surface should be protected with adhesive tape.

Usually, if the surface to be polished is small, the work is done by hand. But easier, at lower cost and faster, the desired result is obtained when using a grinder. For example, car headlights are best polished with it. Such work is carried out in several ways, and sometimes you have to think about how you can polish plexiglass.

Ways to do it

Using sandpaper and polishing paste

From the necessary equipment for polishing you will need:

• emery cloth 2000 and 800;
• soft cloth, felt or felt;
• polishing paste.

Initially, sandpaper No. 800 is used, the workpiece can be moistened with water. As a result, small scratches will be removed (leveled) and the surface will become matte. There's nothing wrong with that, that's the way it should be. The main thing is that it should be smooth and without visible signs of damage.

Then the surface is treated with sandpaper No. 2000, after which the glass becomes transparent and the scratches disappear. To improve the quality of grinding allows the use of polish. It is applied to a soft fabric (flannel, felt, felt, etc.), and then the entire surface is processed with uniform movements. This continues until the desired result is obtained.

A variation of the considered method can be considered the option when they are limited only to polishing with sandpaper (if the part is not responsible and its transparency does not play a special role). Or when only polish is applied without pre-sanding. You can learn more about this from the video:

Using GOI paste

In principle, this is almost the same as the method discussed earlier. Only in this case, GOI paste is used instead of polish. The polishing technology is actually the same - first, the surface is treated with an emery cloth, and then the final gloss is applied with GOI paste. Its characteristics and features of use can be found here:

More details about the technology of polishing in a similar way are described here:

Surface treatment of glass with auto polishes

To restore the quality of surfaces, you can use various car cosmetics designed to eliminate minor scratches and damage. In principle, the work is carried out as follows - an auto polish is applied to the surface, and then it is rubbed with a soft cloth, or a grinder, or a special nozzle for a grinder.

But it is better to first read the instructions for using the product and conduct a trial check on a small area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe surface.

The polishing methods mentioned are far from the only ones, there are others, for example, using toothpaste, but these are already options for critical situations, and the considered methods for restoring the transparency of plexiglass are usually enough.

Sometimes it is not at all intentional that we damage the glasses of watches, phones or transparent surfaces. various devices. To eliminate the scratches that have appeared, it is quite enough to simply polish the surface of the plexiglass. And you can do it yourself, including at home.

POLISHING OF PLUS GLASS AND OTHER PLASTICS

Sometimes, in the manufacture of home-made gizmos from plexiglass and other plastics - various boxes, 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, tripolite, chalk, chromium oxide, aluminum oxide, crocus) with various binding additives are usually used: beeswax, wax-like substances (ceresin, paraffin), oleic acid, oil machine, spindle, 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 plastic, gives mirror polished surfaces.

For polishing parts made of thermoplastic plastics, N2 1, 4 and 5 pastes are recommended, as well as Lik paste, 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.

At machining 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 an 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 for 30-60 minutes.

Candidate of Technical Sciences V. IVANOV.

"Science and Life", 7, 1975

Plexiglas is widely used in various industries. Partitions are made from this material, viewing windows, showcases, telescopes, accessories for Vehicle, microscopes, lamps, as well as construction and medical equipment. Plexiglas has many advantages. However, the material must be well looked after. Only in this case the product will last long enough. So, how to polish plexiglass at home?

What is it for?

Plexiglas is considered a strong and reliable material. However, over time, small scratches, chips and cuts appear on it. This happens due to the mechanical impact on the product during its use. To restore the attractive appearance of plexiglass, it is necessary to polish it.

It should be noted that the procedure itself is simple. But at the same time, this is a meticulous and lengthy task that requires patience and endurance. In addition, strong, aggressive substances cannot be used to process plexiglass. As reviews show, after using such products, the material may become dull and cloudy.

What is needed?

So, how to polish plexiglass and what is required for this? Many people ask a similar question. Material handling is a simple process. The result after manual polishing is much better than after using special equipment that can heat the material and melt its surface. Before processing, prepare everything necessary materials and tools. This will require:

Preparing plexiglass for polishing

Since it is impossible to polish plexiglass without removing it from the product, it is worth carefully removing it. After that, you need to glue the edges with tape. This will protect them from chips and other damage.

You need to stick the adhesive tape with an overlap: from 1 to 2 millimeters. If the plexiglass cannot be removed from the product, then you will have to work with extreme caution. In this case, all the parts located next to the surface to be treated must be sealed with adhesive tape.

polishing process

How to polish plexiglass so that it is like new? To begin with, the surface must be treated with the marking 800. In this case, it is worth adding a little water. Treat plexiglass evenly. In conclusion, the material must be wiped, and the result can be evaluated. The result should be This is natural. If the surface is unevenly matte, then it is worth continuing processing. At the same time, it is necessary to ensure that potholes do not form.

When the surface becomes completely matte, you can proceed to the next step. Since it is necessary to polish plexiglass until it is completely transparent, it must be used with the marking 2000. The material should be processed over the entire area. Plexiglas should become more transparent. At the same time, there should be no scratches on its surface. If a defect is found, then it is worth sanding it with sandpaper marked 800.

The final stage of polishing

How to polish plexiglass at home? In such cases, it is better to use a special paste. It is necessary to apply a small amount of polishing composition to a piece of soft cloth, and then process the plexiglass, making measured, neat movements. After a while, the material will begin to acquire a shine.

In conclusion, it is worth carefully considering the treated surface. If a scratch is found on it, then the product should be sanded and polished again. If the result completely satisfies you, then you can carefully remove the adhesive tape. After that, it is worth carefully polishing the edges of the part. As the reviews show, such processing allows you to return an attractive appearance to plexiglass products. The material becomes transparent and scratch-free.

Polishing with GOI paste

How to polish plexiglass with your own hands, using felt. If such material is not available, then it can be replaced with a woolen insole, a piece of felt boots or cotton pads.

The polishing process is quite simple. It is necessary to apply a little GOI paste on a piece of material and carefully treat the surface. You need to polish the plexiglass until you get the desired result.

If the material is very old, then it should be polished before processing with GOI paste. You can use sandpaper for this. In this case, the skin should be very fine. The surface of Plexiglas before grinding should be moistened with a spray bottle. It is necessary to ensure that the material does not dry out during processing. Otherwise, scratches will form on the surface. Only after grinding, you can start polishing the plexiglass with GOI paste.

In conclusion

Now you know how to polish plexiglass from scratches, chips and other mechanical damage. As the reviews show, you should work with the material carefully. After all, any awkward movement can leave a mark on its surface.

For polishing plexiglass, you can use a polish designed for the treatment of vehicles. It is enough to apply the product on the surface of the material, and then grind it with a piece of felt. However, before the procedure, experts recommend testing the polish on a small area. Finally, rub the surface with liquid oil.