pneumatic sander for scratch removal on large acrylic tanks

[Gary Majchrzak]

anybody here use one?

 

[HarrsCars]

Yes, I did on my 300. I used my small air finish sander and bought a norton kit it comes with a pad about 1/2 thick that goes in between the disk and sander. It also came with 1500 and 3000 grit paper. You can get tougher grits if you need to knock down some heavy scratches. But when you use the 1500 and 3000 be prepared to be there a while. Any keep the discs clean. Any grit will transfer to the acrylic and make ugly little swirls.

After that I broke out my variable speed makita and polished it just like I would a clear coat car. Cleaned it with Novus and filled her up.

Good luck
Mike

 

[Justjoe]

Look to get 10,000 rpm and a BIG compressor with a big tank so you have the volume of air to keep the sander at full speed.

 

[HarrsCars]

Hey Joe.

How often do you have to buff and sand the main viewing windows. I am sure they take a beating but there ultra thick. You sand and buff the big ones any different.

Mike

 

[troylee]

Depending how deep the scratches are you can use a d.a. sander with 320 for deep stuff then move to 600 on the da....once that is accomplished get a nice block and start wet sanding with 1000, 1500, 2000, and 3000 then shine her the rest of the way with novus#2 and a buffer........pretty simple but very time consuming......

 

[Grunion]

can you sand scratches in the tank while it full?

 

[troylee]

If you pick up a rainbow kit you can.....I think the grits go all the way up to 8000grit.......you just use your mag float as a sanding block, it will make the water a little cloudy due to the fact that your sanding acrylic but to the best of my knolodge it don't hurt anything....hth.