I am currently working on another one of my projects and thought I would share my experience about restoring plastic light lenses with you as could prove useful and save you some money (this would work on 911 rear lenses and also on modern cars with plastic type headlights/rear lights).
The rear lights on the car I am doing a full resto are pretty rare (if you want the correct ones) and as such the price tag when you can get one is steep to say the least (found one lens recently, brand new but going for £300, that is just the plastic lens !!!!).
One of the sets I got with the car are the correct ones but the plastic were dull, scratched etc so decided to see if I could bring them back to life.
After researching a lot on the net, I ordered the 3M Lens restorer kit which turned up today. What could be the worse that could happen (well, having to find £600 for new lenses ?? )
So here is the lens after a good wash with soap. As you can see, scratches all over and the center part is really dull :
The kit includes everything you need, and you basically sand down the plastic, starting with some 500, actually making even more small scratches to the lens !!!!!!!
Then down to 800 and you start looking for your wallet thinking ''What have I done'', it is worse than before..........
3rd stage is with a special disc, kind of wet sanding the lens and you start seeing the scratches going away...
Once you are happy with that stage (picture above is 1/2 way through the process, did have a few more go until it was to my liking), you do the final stage which is in fact a polish and you can start breathing again.
I actually did the lens all over again about 3 times and it is now absolutely stunning. Will post some pics once I have finished putting the all thing back together (redoing the chrome ring, housing etc etc but should be back together in a couple of days)
So here you are, £20 for the kit, a few hours work (would be a lot easier on a 911 rear lens as these ones I have just done are curved and full of ridges which makes the process more difficult) and a lot on money saved...
The rear lights on the car I am doing a full resto are pretty rare (if you want the correct ones) and as such the price tag when you can get one is steep to say the least (found one lens recently, brand new but going for £300, that is just the plastic lens !!!!).
One of the sets I got with the car are the correct ones but the plastic were dull, scratched etc so decided to see if I could bring them back to life.
After researching a lot on the net, I ordered the 3M Lens restorer kit which turned up today. What could be the worse that could happen (well, having to find £600 for new lenses ?? )
So here is the lens after a good wash with soap. As you can see, scratches all over and the center part is really dull :
The kit includes everything you need, and you basically sand down the plastic, starting with some 500, actually making even more small scratches to the lens !!!!!!!
Then down to 800 and you start looking for your wallet thinking ''What have I done'', it is worse than before..........
3rd stage is with a special disc, kind of wet sanding the lens and you start seeing the scratches going away...
Once you are happy with that stage (picture above is 1/2 way through the process, did have a few more go until it was to my liking), you do the final stage which is in fact a polish and you can start breathing again.
I actually did the lens all over again about 3 times and it is now absolutely stunning. Will post some pics once I have finished putting the all thing back together (redoing the chrome ring, housing etc etc but should be back together in a couple of days)
So here you are, £20 for the kit, a few hours work (would be a lot easier on a 911 rear lens as these ones I have just done are curved and full of ridges which makes the process more difficult) and a lot on money saved...
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