Foggy Plastic

[nefsigh]

​Hi all. I thought I posted this question but if I did, it disappeared (which seems to happen to some of the posts...weird)
Anyway, I had a Vac Deb red body slip into water (warm of course) and I didn't notice it for several hours. of course when I took it out it was cloudy. I also noted some of the "cloudiness" would "scratch" off when I ran my fingernail over it, but nothing much happened when I took a cloth and some Simichrome compound, So, question is: Any way to bring this pen body back to life? Or is it a work of art to be framed?

 

Thanks

Lenny

 

(Nefsigh)

 

[eachan]

Sorry to say, but in my own experience this kind of damage isn't reversible.

[BT_Summers]

I agree with eachan, you are going to have your work cut out for you and this may be a lost cause.

 

Some things to try.

 

You can buy a 4 sided nail block, used by the fairer sex for buffing their nails, if as you as you say the couding can be abraded away try using the block, forget sides 1 and 2 and start at 3 finishing on 4, available all over the place, last one I bought was at Walmart, a pack of 4 was $2.

 

A product that is hard to find is Meguiars Plastic Cleaner, different from their Plastrx, It is a professional product and used on cloudy plastic headlights, also works very well on your phone screen.

 

 

[Stylomeister]

I've run into the foggy plastic problem many times before when adjusting sections, feeds and cap threads on some plastics. You have the choice of using direct heat or a more gentle dunk in boiling water to tighten sections or cap threads. I'd rather deal with fog than my section catching fire or my cap gaining a new waistline. BHR tolerates direct heat much better than many plastics in my experience.

 

Anyway... nail buffers are what I use every time to bring back the surface finish if I run into this issue and it works every time for me. These buffers vary a lot - don't start with the roughest side to remove the fogging, you only need some gentle abrasion to remove it and then you can polish with the grey side followed with your favourite liquid polish.

 

If its a transparent part, polishing the inside is harder but still quite possible but worry about that once you have the external visible surface back to its original state.

 

Good luck!