Polishing Non-glass lenses

[CaptSquid]

I've been told that one can polish plastic/poly lenses with Brasso and a whole lot of elbow grease. Is this so?

[NotDadsW41]

True.

[WoodButcher]

Depends on the use of the non-glass lens, contact lenses? no. The lenses covering the lights of our vans? yes. I used a kit sold by Turtle wax made for the job. It came with a liquid polishing compound, and 3, 2"x2" sanding pads of different grits. My kid bought it for his car and spent 2 hours rubbing and sanding and rubbing,,,,, that headlight looked pretty good.

He was beat and decided to leave the other one for another day so I played with it. I used the coarse pad to shooth the worst spots and then took it to the buffing wheel. Took me more time to pull the fixture out of the car than to polish. No elbow grease involved. The Polish in the kit was very much like brasso, I wouldn't be surprised if they were the same stuff.

[CaptSquid]

I tackled one during the wee hours. Because it was just surface haze, it polished right out, revealing schmutz INSIDE of the turn signal lense. But I think I can run some water inside and a bit of detergent and play 007's favourite drink.

[blacknome]

Maybe it's my OCD but I have found that it's worth the time to pull the lens off the vehicle to work it. Starting with 400 grit up to 2000 then polish compound and wax with a buffing wheel ( I bungee cord my buffer down to a workbench LOL ).
It works wonders and makes the lenses better than new IMO. If you are doing headlights they typically have a clearcoat on them that yellows over time ( you will need to sand all that off to get a truely clear lense )

[1Gary]

I got extra lens for Ole Yellar anyways.Might try 6" buffing wheels on my bench grinder and some of the stuff from Eastwood.I think I still have some of that around still in a box somewhere.

[CaptSquid]

Although not quite perfect, the Brasso removed the yellowing haze from the front turn signals. I acquired these from the JY because my left one leaked and the right one was broken. After polishing the outside of the lenses, I put a shot of Ivory dish soap inside and filled them both with hot water, swished them around and rinsed thoroughly. The inside was just plain schmutzig and this rinse with soapy water cleaned the reflectors and the inside of the lenses. With the heat, the condensation won't last for long.

Sorry, no pix. I tried, but they all came out fuzzy and non-distinct, both with flash and without.