Scratches in canopy

Hi All, During the canopy fit and build I managed to get a lot of scratching on my canopy. Ideally it will need a total refurbish as the scratches are all over. Very few catch my finger nail. Any one know of a product that can be applied and worked like a car polish for plexi? Thanks in advance

Sandpaper!

I know that sounds extreme, but there are several products available that go from one grit sandpaper to progressively finer products. There is also a family of polishes that has progressively finer polishes. These are available from the major aircraft parts stores.

My own 6A canopy came from an abandoned project and had a gallon of epoxy paint spilled center front. I used ordinary hardware store black sandpaper and water to sand the paint off and eventually get an acceptable view. Frightening, but it works!

Nuvite!

Call those folks to see if they have a miracle cure for your problem. I recall that they do have some plastic polishes...

I noticed that mine has some scratches too - so I'll be right behind ya!

Best,
Mark

What Vern said. I too had some construction-related scratches, but starting with 320 grit wet paper and working to 2000 grit then the polishes completely removed any trace of them.

Novus products work great.
Use fine grit sand paper, like 800-1200 and higher if you can catch a finger nail on it. Then work it over with #3 Novus, then #2 and finish with #1.
Scary at first but it really cleans up like new.
BTW, when Dan Mauer (Have gun will travel) painted my plane, putting the final touches on it he used 3M "Finese it" on his buffer and ran it right up onto my canopy. Scared the heck out of me but he told not to worry. I'm now convinced "Finesse it" is about the same product as Novus #2 or 3. They look and feel the same at least, and work about the same.
Tim Andres

Always start with very fine abrasive, no coarser than say- 600 - 800 grit. One can always go coarser if after 5 - 10 minutes the scratches are not disappearing. You don't want to impart deep sanding scratches if not necessary. Sand any direction initially, but sand perpendicular to the scratch when trying to determine if its all gone. Sanding parallel to the scratch tends to hide the scratch. Do not concentrate in one area, it is very easy to change the optics (ruin) even when all the scratches have been removed! Scratches in your field of vision need to be removed with a minimum of material removal to avoid changing the optics. Follow instructions carefully- work smarter, not harder. My A & P students can spend 6 hours on a 3" x 3" and still not get it right.

Go to MICRO-SURFACE.com and get what kit you think would work best for your canopy. You can do it by hand or orbital sander, both ways work great. I'm not affiliated with these folks at all just super happy with there stuff cuz I was in same boat as you and now its all cleared up And yes when you first start sanding you will think u destroyed it but as you progress thru the finer grades of sandpaper it gets much better pretty fast. Hope this helps.

Mike

Send it out

I think if you look around you might fine a business that specializes in restoring plastics. I had a vari-eze canopy done by a guy and it came out like new. Someone one who does it all the time can probably do it for you at a reasonable cost.

The guy I used was located in Bakersfield Ca., can't remember his name couple of years ago.

Try these guys

Here's a possibility in NSW. http://www.uticolor.com.au/plastic.html

I used Micro Mesh on the entire front windscreen after finishing construction. Scary at first with the coarse layer but turned out great. Available at ACS. It was what maintenance used in the military on our canopys. Also helped that I got a demo from the sales guy at Oshkosh a couple of years ago.

Use Novus from ACS: http://www.aircraftspruce.com/search/search.php?s=Novus

#2 for light scratches or for paint fog (overspray)
#3 for deep scratches
#1 for everyday cleaning and polish

This products work work wonders.

Carl

Scratch-Off kits, about $37, have four different grades of polish and a couple of drill operated foam applicators.

I just two days ago did my windscreen after 1600 hours of cleaning bugs guts from it, as well as miscellaneous scratches and general cob-webbing. I should not have waited this long - the results were dramatic. I used one of these kits 17 years ago during the construction to remove a few deeper scratches, but the compounds had all dried out, so I bought a new one. Since I could not feel any of the newer scratches, I only needed to use the finer two compounds. I did have some very noticeable scratches, which I believe came from some contaminated cleaning cloths I was using.

I also had a number of scuffs, etc., on the inside of the slider's windscreen. Since I couldn't use the drill there, I simply used elbow grease. It didn't take very long to clean that up. I think less than 2 hours total time was needed.