Dry Acrylic Tank buffing / scratch removal

[SirToadie]

So I've spent a lot of time reading about scratch removal and I can't find what I need. I have a used dry acrylic tank. It's not too badly scratched up so I don't think I need to do the wet sanding but... I don't know.

I'm at the phase where I'm buffing with nouvos polish and it's doing a great job but clear acrylic presents a new problem... there's two sides lol. Can I buff the inside of the aquarium so I can tell if there's any scratches or will it leave a harmful film?

Right now that tank looks good but I want great and if it's empty I'll just crawl inside the thing and buff away.

Thoughts?

[bo0sted2g]

I buffed the inside of mine with Novus. I don't have any livestock in the tank yet. But I saw a video on youtube from tidal gardens I think, he showed how to restore a scratched acrylic tank and he used the Novus inside the tank too. I would just make sure to wipe it out good and rinse it out after


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[SirToadie]

Perfect, that's what I needed to know.

[slief]

If it were me, I would wet sand with various grades working all the way up to 4000 first. Then buff using Novus 1 and Novus 2. Buffing is more about polishing than removing scratches. Granted, very fine surface scratches can be buffed out but it you can feel the scratches with your finger nail then you really should wet sand first. Machine tools make the job much easier. Sanding can be done with a vibrating sander or you can use an orbital. There are some good videos of the process on youtube. I will also note that the process is very similar to color sanding and polishing automotive paint. Difference being that deeper scratches require heavier grit sand paper. When I remove scratches from a full acrylic tank, some scratches necessitate the use of 400 grit. Since you don't have the luxury of using a buffing wheel in a stocked tank, i work my way all the way up to 12,000 grit.

Here is a thread I detailed covering the step by step process of removing scratches on a stocked tank. The process is very similar for a dry tank but you can use machine tools and start buffing around 4000 grit or less.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2538092

[SirToadie]

Yeah I read all of those. Overall the tank looks really good so I can't tell what can be buffed out and what can't. My idea was to buff first, identify the major or more intense flaws and then go with the sand paper if needed. This round is just for all the minor clean up and removal. Ideally, I won't see any huge flaws.