Bill Daniels wrote:

I bought some expensive paper based polishing towels from a plastics
company. They were touted as the 'perfect' acrylic cleaning rag.
Unfortunately, they scratched a test piece of plexy just like any paper
towel. The common advice to use only soft cloth rags seems to be well
founded.

I have polished out scratched canopies and to do it right is a LOT of work.
Best to never get them scratched in the first place.

There are some good scratch removing polishing compounds available but I
always wind up with McGuire's #10 as the final wax. #10 takes a lot of work
to do it right but the wax is exactly the same refractive index as Plexiglas
so the remaining scratches disappear. There is a story going around that
#10 leaves the canopy statically charged which attracts dust. I've never
seen this if the polish job is done according to the label instructions.

Bill Daniels


Thanks for the wax recomendation, Bill.

Would you go into more detail on the scratch _removal_ stuff.

I have a 1968 Hughes OH6A that I'm restoring for display (non-flying)
at the new Army Aviation museum.

When I got her, the right side of the bubble was heavily coated
with a hard mineral deposit. I tried a lot of different things
but finally took it off mechanically with wet 1500/2000 grit paper.
That worked ok, but left the obvious hazy results, which I am now
trying to clear up.

The last issue on this project is that I have no financial support
of any kind for this project. So what ever will work is what I'll do,
but cheaper is better!

Thanks,

Richard Lamb