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Removing scratches from clear acrylic sheet

I am trying to remove scratches and blur marks from clear acrylic sheet.

Merrie Martino
CSULB - Long Beach CA USA
2000

Merrie, Lottsa luck! The only way to remove scratch and blur marks from Acrylics is to polish it using a rotating buffer wheel having loose felt cloth strips. Too much speed and pressure causes the material to overheat.

The 'local' supplier of acrylics might have some new & wonderful polish (which I doubt) but again you need heat, due to the rotating felt cloth, to so-to-speak 'remelt' the surface. For very bad scratches, first of all sandpaper down, then use fine sandpaper finishing up with superfine water based sandpaper ... and then 'buff' the area.

A pain in le neck. Enjoy life ... didn't the sheet come with a protective paper backing (to prevent scratching)? Acrylic is like most (thermo)plastics, it scratches easily. Hope this helps. Cheers.

Freeman Newton [deceased]
(It is our sad duty to advise that Freeman passed away
April 21, 2012. R.I.P. old friend).
2000

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2000

Not to worry, Merrie! Assuming the scratches are fine surface scratches, they're easy to get rid of. Basically, you just need a really fine abrasive to polish the scratches out. You don't need heat.

Get the smallest qty of pumice [on eBay or Amazon] and rottenstone [affil links] you can buy. A little goes a long way, and it's not expensive.

Rottenstone and pumice are very fine abrasives (pumice is a bit coarser); just make a polishing 'ball' out of an old T-shirt or similar soft cloth and polish out the scratches. If the scratches are a bit deeper, you may want to get some acrylic solvent (you can find it on the web, or at a store that sells thicker pieces of 'Plexiglas' - for example, a hobby store). Warning on the solvent, tho: it will dissolve whatever area of the acrylic sheet you apply it to, and you'll have to polish out the whole area.

I've done this, and scratches will vanish - hard to believe that you can use an abrasive to get rid of scratches, but of course that's how car polish works... Good luck!

Rob Hunter
- Cornall Bridge, Connecticut

Sourcing:

Pumice & Rottenstone
on
Amazon

(affil links)