Rehabilitated acryllic tank

[Anonymous]

I inherited two severly scratched acrylic tanks. What are the chances I can buff most of the scratches out? And how?

They're about 5 feet long and the only thing wrong with them is the scratches. It would be great if could reuse them.

Glenn

 

[Anonymous]

hi.
Acrylic is easy to scratch, but easy to restore. You need to judge how deep and how many are the scratches. For many deep scratch, you need to get a professional to do it for you if you don't have time. Or get a mechanical restoration kit. But for your tank size, I don't feel that you need to be that serious.

Get a sand paper kit, like the MicroMesh, and use some elbow grease. After a few hours, you will see improvement on the appearance fo the tanks.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks, the scratches are fairly deep and all over the front of the tank. Looks like someone used a magnet scraper with a piece of crushed coral stuck to it.

 

[95galReef]

If the tanks are empty you would be better off using the Novus products to buff the tank, buy them from an online tanning supply company, they sell the products cheaper than anyone.... Novus 1, Novus2 and Novus 3.

Also look up Micro-Mesh on the internet and grab some of that too. you will need grades 2400, 3200, 4000, 6000, 8000 and 12000. Your tanks will look as good as new when your done. Don't buy a scratch removal kit as it will contain a tiny peice of micro-mesh in all the sizes I mentioned above. If you buy them somewhere else you can buy three times as much for the same price.

 

[Anonymous]

hi.
FYI, I use MicroMesh hook&loop sandpaper on a 5 inch random orbit sander. Finish off with MicroMesh polisher. Works like a charm.

 

[Anonymous]

Ok now let's pretend that I don't know anything about what you're talking about. What do I need to do??

 

[Mouse]

Nice one Rover :lol:

I think the grades of Micro mesh are so you can polish to a finer and finer finish untill eventually youll be wiping it down. Its like you would polish a table, rough first, then a finishing paper, then polish, except with this you have about 7 stages to go through. Dont envy you man, that sounds like a hell of allot of elbow grease to me. Id get them chemically refinished at an Acrylic factory. Seen as their empty WTF, you might as well. And considering the cost of Acrylic compared to the cost of re-finishing. Id say it would be worth it to have that "factory shine" back on them. They must have to finish every tank they make, either that or be sooo carefull building them.

 

[Anonymous]

hi.
I am a little confused about the factory chemical refinishing... please explain...

I know that when they build the acrylic tank in the factory, they keep the protective paper backing on the acrylis sheet as long as possible. Some custom tanks even still have them on when delivered to the customers. AFAIK, they only refinish the router edges, using hydrogen torch or sandpape/polisher. They don't touch the main surfaces.