Buffing acrylic to remove haze and surface small scratches

[reefgurl86]

Hello all,

Just a got my hands on a 64 gallon acrylic half bubble tank and wanting to know the correct way to remove haze and small surface scratches.

Thanks Folks,
Reefgurl

[cwegescheide]

Just got done cleaning up a second hand acylic frag tank. It had a lot of fine scratches and some pretty deep ones as well. I got an acrylic scratch removal kit from my LFS (can't remember the name of it but) it consisted of a bunch of different grit wet sand paper. I started out with 600 grit, then 1200 and up to 4500 grit I think it was, maybe 6000.. I took my time and removed everything I could do and was left with some hazy spots in my tank.

I then got some Novus II acrylic polish (LFS had it but I've also seen it at acrylic shops) and used that stuff for the final polishing. The tank looks brand new. Its good stuff for the haze and VERY fine scratches.

Take you time and be patient. With a lot of elbow grease you'll have your tank looking brand new.

[Mako Shark II]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12311202#post12311202 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by reefgurl86
Hello all,

Just a got my hands on a 64 gallon acrylic half bubble tank and wanting to know the correct way to remove haze and small surface scratches.

Thanks Folks,
Reefgurl

Reefgurl,
My old 55 from years ago used to be Acrylic....... Perhaps that's why my new 120 in the works, will be an AGA!!

No offense to those "plastic" people out there, who fawn over their acrylic tanks; To be sure, one can be very creative with acrylic and do things that you didn't used to be able to do with glass, but for me personally, I'm done with bumping a piece of LR against an inside wall of an acrylic tank, only to leave a permenent tattoo of the unfortunate event. Enough. I'll get off my soap-box.

To answer your question, the reply above this one is correct; you want to use a gradient system to gradually "buff-out" any scratches.

That's works, and it's the way it is done on high-performance aircraft, like a LearJet, which uses a 1" think "acrylic" windshield. And that is the way to do it in or on your tank.

Your LFS should carry something that will work, but if you really want to get after it, the following Manufacturer is one I've used and sold before. And if I can buff-out a bird-strike on a LearJet going .8 mach, then it'll work on your tank too.

Teh Brand name is "Micro-Mesh" https://www.micro-surface.com/default.cfm?page_id=1 You'll need to drill into the site to find a local Distributor.

Just plan on taking some time to go through all the gradual steps. Good luck! (I'm going to go scrap my glass tank now.) :p