Scratch Remover - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: JtroTechAB
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: August 21, 2018, 11:39:20 am
content: Hello,I have got some aluminium plates.Want to remove scratches and make them look shine.for this I am looking scratch remover in aerosol spray form any suggestions?will the silver spray paint will do?

author: SMTech
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 21, 2018, 12:47:03 pm
content: Something like Brasso or Autosol and a good rub down might be better.

author: Pinkus
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 21, 2018, 09:22:19 pm
content: A photo of the plates and the scratches would be helpful.Generally I would use metal polish, with very very shallow scratches you may try simple tooth paste.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 25, 2018, 12:08:58 am
content: What I did is I found the smallest grit of sand paper that masked all the scratches with the least amount of effort, then progressed up with sand paper (so I did 220-400-1000-2000) and then used an aluminum polishing compound on a rotary polisher.For a follow up if you buy one of the 3000 and 5000 grit foam backed sand paper disks you will get close to a mirror finish, but they are kind of expensive, I never used them.When I looked in a factory on the grade of aluminum plates they got (used as internal brackets and shit, in the product they sell), it looked equivalent to like a 500+ grit polish, like from the machine shop they were buying it from.If you have a random orbital sander or a vibrating sander (slightly worse for this, the one that has some clips that you put a square of sand paper on) you will quickly get to a kind of nice fairly reflective mat surface finish with commonly available 2000 grit sand paper as a final step. You get a cool non uniform texture actually from the vibratory sander that I thought looked pretty neat. And it would do massive amounts to hide dirt.Mother's aluminum polish from your will bring this up to a hazy surface with good reflective properties.It's actually pretty nice for outdoor applications because the haze will cover up alot of dirt with little discernable difference, particularly from rain splatter. It does not look particularly reflective but you can clearly make out objects in the reflection at this point, they are just covered with haze, kind of like cataracts.To get a real mirror finish you will want to look on youtube to see various vendors sell aluminum polishes in a few grades that will be used with a DA (dual action) polisher with different grades of disks, I was not able to get to this point with aluminum polish that I found on the store shelves. But you still need to remove enough material to get all the deep scratches out in a timely manner, which means using sand paper if you can feel them. I would not use this stuff until you have like a 2000 grit finish from what I saw.Then you can cover with some kind of protectant like car wax.I kinda think that with surfaces that are curved or prone to dents you will be happier if you just leave it at a highly sanded polish rather then trying to make it a mirror, because all the imperfections will stand out like crazy. Highly polished stuff makes me want to hire a maid to keep it clean.Notice how popular the brushed nickel look is now, vs the chrome look, for things like kitchen appliances, bathroom things, modern furniture. That's the kind of look you get if you finish with 2000 grit or so on the vibratory sander. Chrome just looks trashy now.

author: ebastler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 26, 2018, 08:07:30 am
content: coppercone2, thank you for the comprehensive post!What do you do to keep the polished surface from oxidizing in the long run? A layer of clear laquer? (Any specific brand you can recommend for good adhesion and some scratch resistance?) Or do you just keep the bare aluminum surface and re-polish if needed?

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 26, 2018, 04:41:22 pm
content: I don't know, I just used car wax.Maybe you can anodized a highly polished surface to make a tint protector.Proper use of automotive clearcoat paint would probably work so long it does not diffuse. But you will need to repolish it a bunch, because spray paint will have this 'orange skin' effect.. this polishing you would do with a sequence of polishing compounds, possibly starting with a rough sand paper (but maquire makes a rough polish that claims to 'take over' after 1200 grit sand paper). I think the automotive clearcoat will give you the strongest layer, since its meant for cars that take a beating driving down a dirty windy highway at 70mph.If you go to a autozone they will have some maquires products that have a temperature scale on the side indicating what grit they are good for. But its more complicated then that, because they have proprietary abrasives that break down into smaller ones, so over time your polishing pad will have smaller particles on it.. and there is no good data that says when you should switch to a finer compound or just keep rubbing with the compound you have, I think its a trial and error thing. Sokolov wrote about his car experiences in my thread though. For this reason I suspect they won't work on metal, so you need seperate metal polish that just has stable abrasive in it, and you need to clean the surface and change grits.I have a thread about it in the 'other stuff' forum which is filled with ideas, and you can find ALOT about polishing softer surfaces, like plastic and clearcoat paint, on car forums and maquires web forum (which does not have so much on metal polishing).I think the plastic clearcoat can turn yellow with UV though, which also requires sanding, and I don't know if aluminum or clearcoat will last longer, if you just leave it as aluminum you can just repolish it with the finest polish that will work, indefinatly, wheras if you repolish clear coat to get rid of the eventual UV damage, you will eventually wear it down and it will require repaint.My idea was that for outdoor applications the car wax would form a protective layer where contaminates would accumulate on, so it would at least protect it from abrasion due to particles being blown at it in the wind and stuff.. but I have NO IDEA if it stops oxygen diffusion effectively. It makes sense to me that it would at least reduce the rate some what. You can also remove and reapply it easily and its extremely cheap, if you buy a tub, wax your car twice a year, you will have plenty left over for any kind of small jobs like window sills, non eating table tops, etc. It goes on ultra thin, just read the directions for use, you need to dry it. Given how cheap and easy it is, I don't think you can go wrong with turtlewax on most things that need to be cleaned, I just would not eat off of it.You should use the claybar to clean stuff before polishing though, after you use a microfiber cloth, especially if its a nice surface.Another option for outdoor and dirty use might be to use ceramic topcoats, but these have all sorts of problems like high application difficulty, I don't klow if they will work on bare metal, and they make water bead up so you get more rainspots, but they should clean alot easier. They are also really expensive. You would use them instead of wax. There is a youtube car community that is doing alot of active research on ceramic coatings at this moment, just search for ceramic coatings for a while and pay attention to your recommended videos. I never seen it used on metal, only as a coating to apply after clear coat.They do say howver due to the water beading, the ceramic coatings will end up looking like spotty shit and can be affected by the crystal growth from water impurities, wheras wax does not care at all and looks better with less maintence. A home job of ceramic coat supposedly lasts like 2-3 years, wheras a professional one (costing thousands) will last like 7-8 years if maintained. Car wax IMO is good for like 3-6 months.. they use like heating, sensitizers, special cleaners, and all this crazy shit for ceramic coating application, the idea being that your car will look great if you just hose it down after it gets dirty, but you need to hose it downor else.I thought they might be really interesting to use in a machine shop on machines that get dirty from water cooling... I don't know the oil resistance of the ceramic coats, but it might make machine tools not look like perpetual shit unless you have a maid crew. Like on a surface grinder, water cooled band saw, bench grinder guard etc. I find I need to soak my bench grinder guards in wd-40 to clean the muck out of them, but I wonder if a ceramic coat might make it so you can quickly wipe it down with a tarry cloth after using it. Or in a polishing area, I find that after polishing, If Idon't bring my equipment out doors (say due to rain), the entire area ends up being completely coated in difficult to remove wax/abrasive mixture that is just a pain in the dick to clean. It ends up caking on most surfaces and you need to use a brush and detergent to clean it well. Same goes for rust removal using a wheel, everything gets fucking coated. Or just generally using a grinder indoors after welding.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 26, 2018, 05:32:21 pm
content: https://www.youtube.com/user/shibbeler/videosThis youtube channel is the largest test I have found, watch the 00 to 06 video's about the coating test. Its a show down between all the different waxes and ceramic coatings and other crap you can find..Ah hthe wonder ful world of coatings.There is 2 tests he is running, one with just ceramic's and another with like 20 or more diff products of all sorts on 1 hoodas for the clearcoathttp://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/114553-do-all-clear-coats-yellow/Apparantly their pretty good. Now we just need to know the oxygen diffusivity and the strain fractures of the clearcoat layer on bare metal and if the clearcoat can adhere well to bare metal, and if the primer used for painting before clearcoat provides some kind of strain relief for the clear coat to maintain its integrity.For painting metal I typically get it nice and hot with a torch before painting too, I don't know if it helps against trapped moisture in the crevices. Beware the torch will depot what looks to be moisture on your part, but if you heat it enough it will get hot enough that moisture does not accumulate. Most professional things are baked for a while but obviously your gonna have problems and smells if you try to use your kitchen.

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2023, 10:42:54 pm
content: FWIW You can get silicon carbide paper up to 7000 grit via Amazon. Good stuff. It will remove a scratch in shiny plastic if properly applied in successively finer grits.