Much higher grits are available - 12,000+
Beetles
- Thread starter DLJeffs
- Start date
The few times I've worked with "resin", I sand to 600x and then use a three step polish. Of course that is with clear acrylic and probably 2000 rpm on the lathe. Novus is what I use.
I cleaned up some acrylic panels a few years back. As I recall, I went to 1200 then polished with a system made for headlight restoration. The last steps were waxes that helped bring out the shine. But like I said, that was plexiglass, and several years back...
on lapidary machines 3000 grit diamond sanding then on to a polish of cerium oxide or tin oxide or similar on wetted leather
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #45
Well you guys are a lot of help - I don't have any of those things! Just kidding, thanks for offering advice. I can't recall but it seems like when we did this back in the 70's we didn't have wet/dry paper finer grit than 400, maybe 600. I certainly don't remember changing sheets more than once when we got to wet sanding. Dad had a pair of 10 inch buffing wheels set up on one of the lathes, one with white and one with red rouge polish sticks, and he'd do the buffing because it was too easy to catch an edge and fling the piece across the shop floor, usually cracking off corners and stuff. But I have no reference for what level of scratches the buffer would remove. I might need to go to the auto part store and look into polishing stuff. If that would take out the scratches from acrylic after 1200 grit it should do the same on epoxy. Can't hurt. I can always go back and wet sand some more.
Wait a minute - my neighbor told me he used some stuff to polish the headlight covers on his old rig a year ago. I wonder if he has any left and if that would work? Might be worth asking if he has some leftover and do a little experiment.
Wait a minute - my neighbor told me he used some stuff to polish the headlight covers on his old rig a year ago. I wonder if he has any left and if that would work? Might be worth asking if he has some leftover and do a little experiment.
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go to your local lapidary club or rock shop
they have the equipment and knowledge, also you may be able to rent shop time on those machines and get some training
I've got to chuckle a little at "lapidary club and rock shop".
I could go to 50 random people on the street here and could probably count on one hand the number who would know the word lapidary.
If you asked for a rock shop, they'd give you directions to the gravel quarry.
As much as we are all the same, I sometimes forget how different the regions we live in can be. Other than a few random rocks the glaciers left, the only rock we have are limestone quarries in a few places.
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #48
Coincidentally, my neighbor had a set of the Novus plastic polishing system. He lent it to me and I used it on the rhinoceros beetle. Worked great. I did go back and re-sand the sides with 600, 800 and then 1500 before I used the Novus on it because I could still see some obvious scratches. Then went through the #3 (heavy scratches), #2 light scratches, and finally #3 the cleaner polisher. It looks really good. The side view isn't perfect but I think that's more a factor of the resin I used rather than my sanding / polishing effort. Took over 2 hours this morning to do that, but I'm doing it by hand, no power tool.
Congrats! You found the right solution!
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #50
Finished the coconut beetle too. You can still see where I repaired the air bubbles but overall it's pretty good. I'd give it a B compared to ones I've done in the past.
