Plastic polishing fun

[VR4Rob]

So I spent a few hours polishing some later model MKIII Supra tail lights (courtesy of phillyd) and here's how they turned out.

They were pretty badly scratched and swirled
http://www.vr4rob.com/pictures/taillightpolish/1.jpg


http://www.vr4rob.com/pictures/taillightpolish/2.jpg


Done and done
http://www.vr4rob.com/pictures/taillightpolish/3.jpg


http://www.vr4rob.com/pictures/taillightpolish/4.jpg


Here are the 'side' lights. The left is already done but you can see how bad the right was.
http://www.vr4rob.com/pictures/taillightpolish/6.jpg

Here you can see the after (left) and before (right)
http://www.vr4rob.com/pictures/taillightpolish/7.jpg

Mmmm smooth as a baby's :dropit:
http://www.vr4rob.com/pictures/taillightpolish/8.jpg

I can also polish out letters on the tail lights for a cleaner look. See the letters in the middle of the right tail light?
http://www.vr4rob.com/pictures/taillightpolish/9.jpg

Now you don't
http://www.vr4rob.com/pictures/taillightpolish/10.jpg

Both done
http://www.vr4rob.com/pictures/taillightpolish/11.jpg

3rd brake light on the SS
http://www.vr4rob.com/pictures/taillightpolish/12.jpg


http://www.vr4rob.com/pictures/taillightpolish/13.jpg

[Godspeed1976]

Those looks good! Its amazing how little touches like that can make a car look so much better.

[insert_car]

holy crap. write up? i'm looking to do my headlights for the 760Li. what kind of polish? by hand or buffer?

[I want something fast]

Damn, where where you Sunday when I was trying to referbish Ginny's headlights on her Smut Stang. I had to take acetone to the lense to get the terrible yellow oxidation off. That cleared alot of the yellow crusties off but still left the lenses foggy even after taking a headlight repair kit to them.

How much could I donate to you if you could finish the job correctly?

[phillyd]

Nice job Bob! Those look better than I thought they would! Wewt!

holy crap. write up? i'm looking to do my headlights for the 760Li. what kind of polish? by hand or buffer?

Trade secrets...;)

[VR4Rob]

holy crap. write up? i'm looking to do my headlights for the 760Li. what kind of polish? by hand or buffer?

Basically the right kind of paper with the right technique followed by the correct pad at the correct speed on the DA with the appropriate compounds. There's no way (in my opinion) to achieve these kind of results by hand. :D

Damn, where where you Sunday when I was trying to referbish Ginny's headlights on her Smut Stang. I had to take acetone to the lense to get the terrible yellow oxidation off. That cleared alot of the yellow crusties off but still left the lenses foggy even after taking a headlight repair kit to them. How much could I donate to you if you could finish the job correctly?

I've done many sets of headlights, I could definitely fix them. The acetone scares me though, I would worry that it might make the plastic very brittle over time. Most of those headlight kits are crap from what I've seen.

I've turned this:
http://www.vr4rob.com/pictures/headlightresto/1.jpg

into this:
http://www.vr4rob.com/pictures/headlightresto/16.jpg

[FST 05]

Rob, great job.


Really need to get you to fix that place on the back of my car sometime soon.

[Jess]

that shits crazy. Good work dude ;)

[AlmosN8kd]

Nice work Rob; as always, you impress with the detailing skills.

[ChukiDori]

This reminds me,can one restore interior plastic as well? I would settle for a quick paragraph of instruction and a list of quality products :). You seem to be the person to ask. I don't know if clear plastic has different properties than the kind you would find in oh...an s13 interior. But if its possible I need to know.

[Vetteman2003]

My fiance's headlights looked just like that on her Passat and I used a headlight kit from Advance and it looks almost as good as the Jetta you posted. I agree that you can do much more with a polisher but half an hour and some elbow grease works too.

[Drew]

looks awesome! I promise I'm going to call you one of these days hahaha. I'm le broke right now... I just bought a $3300 guitar http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/fastredponycar/forums/smilies/emote26.gif

[AlmosN8kd]

I just bought a $3300 guitar

that could have bought a lot of car parts. :D

[Pegasus_Red]

ummm
not to steal yo thunda rob
but you guys can find this shit on googlizzle :confused:
http://www.techguys.ca/howto/polish_lenses.html

[Drew]

that could have bought a lot of car parts. :D

Yeah no joke.. rods, pistons, new turbo, headwork, ECU...

I'm waiting to pay off my car though before I mod it further... except maybe a programmable ECU.

[VR4Rob]

ummm
not to steal yo thunda rob
but you guys can find this shit on googlizzle :confused:
http://www.techguys.ca/howto/polish_lenses.html

Heh it's cool, it's definitely not rocket science. :cool:

looks awesome! I promise I'm going to call you one of these days hahaha. I'm le broke right now... I just bought a $3300 guitar

What did you buy??? PICS! Did you see what I got for gradeeashun? :steering:

[Zx RaTeD]

Looks good. I used to do those all the time. Just did some on a volvo about a month ago and they turned out great (the headlights) I just use sandpaper, rubbing compound, a buffer, some wax and polish. Makes them look like new. A+ on getting them looking good Rob. I've never sanded down letters before.

[Drew]

What did you buy??? PICS! Did you see what I got for gradeeashun? :steering:

Nah what'd you get?



I got a 2008 Parker Mojo Fly. :cool:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/fastredponycar/Guitar/Mojo/IMG_1134.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/fastredponycar/Guitar/Mojo/IMG_1145.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/fastredponycar/Guitar/Mojo/IMG_1132.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/fastredponycar/Guitar/Mojo/IMG_1152.jpg

[VR4Rob]

Wow that's killer, very nice. It looks like it plays extremely fast.

This is what I got:
http://images.guitarsale.com/products/full/Gibson/393711.jpg

'57 VOS Gibson Les Paul... the 3 pickup model as pictured. I think it's the 'coolest' thing I've ever played. The tone is unbelievable. I think the neck is thicker than the body on my SLSMG soloist :P

[Drew]

RAD! I originally ordered this from carvin, took 3 months for them to build it and they got the stain wrong... it was supposed to be an orange stain with black edges and they somehow interpreted that as black stain?? Anyways, it got sent back for a refund.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/fastredponycar/Guitar/CS6M/IMG_1069.jpg

Step two is to toss in a set of bareknuckle nailbomb pickups into the bridge/neck position of that guitar and you'll wonder how you lived without them. In comparison, they make those gibson pickups sound like dog turd. They're THAT good.

Listen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0WOwNWoDHI


I've got one going in my green one right now and whitney is going to let me get a custom set built for the fly for my bday in may (fly pickups have no little mounting feet so they'd have to be custom built.. dude said no extra charge to build them that way!)

[Godspeed1976]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odQb8ylYstg

YouTube is scary..

[insert_car]

drew....

i'm gonna need that tshirt in the mail first thing in the morning or i'm gonna keeell you.


sick ass guitar btw

[AUtigers350z]

Rob, those lights looked great in person. Definitely going to add a nice touch to Phil's Supra. I'll shoot ya a message about doing my headlights :D

[Drew]

drew....

i'm gonna need that tshirt in the mail first thing in the morning or i'm gonna keeell you.


sick ass guitar btw

you'll have to pry it from the kung fu grip of the dude that does my hair :D

however


I ordered one for myself from here after all the compliments.

http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/catalog/productdetail.jsp?itemdescription=true&itemCount=60&startValue=1&selectedProductColor=&sortby=&id=14853410&parentid=M_APP_TEESSHORT&sortProperties=+product.marketingPriority,-product.startDate&navCount=36&navAction=poppushpush&color=&pushId=M_APP_TEESSHORT&popId=MENS_APPAREL&prepushId=