I have my entire interior out of the car, and I'm looking at all the plastic parts, only one of them is cracked (hatch motor cover panel), they just need to be cleaned up real good.

My problem:

A few of them have some small (not to deap) scratches on them. Would a light sand paper grit take these out with out leaving noticable sanded down areas?

has anyone done this? I don't want to sand them all the way down so that the pattern is gone, I just want to take the scrataches out. 1000 grit be to much? to little?

Thanks!

Daniel

 

i had the same problem on the interior to my 79 camaro. you could sand them down but youd have little "hairs" of plastic my suggestion would be to sand them down with 400 clean them real good and shoot them with an chip guard. you can vary the distance and simulate the effect of the texture till it looks almost factory. i had great results like this. hope this helps

 

you mean sand them down till the patterns are all gone?

 

*bump*

 

*bump* again.

How much should i sand? sand all the texture off? just the scratches?

and what is "chip guard" and where can I find it?

 

for what its worth, before I painted mine, I scrubbed them with steel wool and 600 (?) grit paper. It cleans well, but the fine scratches make the whole thing look a lighter color. I hear that 3M makes a plastic polish kit. Maybe sand down the scraches, and polish again?

 

3m does indeed make a plastic polish. I used it on my taillights to clean em up real nice. Worked very well. I am betting it would work great for your interior too. I bought the "cleaner" and the "polisher" from NAPA. It was like $14 for both bottles.

 

it would be noticable still....

if the scratches are a diff color, you can use a plastic dye or plastic paint (not regular paint), and color it all the same..

sanding it enough to get the scratches out would leave a very noticable spot..

but if you want them to be perfect, start looking for used and new plastic..

 

hm... I guess your right.

Thanks!

 

sand it, then prime it then wet sand them then repaint black. my friend did this to his and it look like new.