Windshield and landing lights lense

[lifendet]

How effective is scratch off windshield repair kits and acrylic lens repair kit for repairing crazed, scratched, hazy lenses? 

[orionflt]

13 minutes ago, lifendet said:

How effective is scratch off windshield repair kits and acrylic lens repair kit for repairing crazed, scratched, hazy lenses? 

depends more on how bad the windshield and lens is, the kits basically use a mild abrasive to remove some material to get rid of the scratches and crazing.

if the scratches are too deep you wont get them out and or cause distortion because you took more material away in one area compared to another.

Brian

[rbridges]

23 minutes ago, lifendet said:

How effective is scratch off windshield repair kits and acrylic lens repair kit for repairing crazed, scratched, hazy lenses? 

I bought a new landing light lens.  My old one was yellowed and distorted.  It wasn't too terribly expensive.

[jaylw314]

2 hours ago, lifendet said:

How effective is scratch off windshield repair kits and acrylic lens repair kit for repairing crazed, scratched, hazy lenses? 

They work fine.  On the lenses/light covers, it's pretty idiot proof, because they don't require optical perfection.  On the windshield, they caution you to do the entire windshield so that you don't cause distortion or optical effects.

[Yetti]

I would spend the time making a new light lens rather than rubbing

[carusoam]

There are threads around here that discuss the various products that have been used successfully....

It is a multi-step process depending how deep the scratches are and how well you want to see through the plasticwhen you are done...

Best regards,

-a-

[jaylw314]

16 hours ago, Yetti said:

I would spend the time making a new light lens rather than rubbing

Making one?  Do you have a vacuum former or something?

[Yetti]

15 minutes ago, jaylw314 said:

Making one?  Do you have a vacuum former or something?

Assuming we are not talking about a light in the wing.    Clamp the old one flat to new piece, trace it, drill holes (with special bit).  Cut out and sand edges.   Your choice if you want to try and heat gun the small bend or screw it on and call it good.     Heat guns and acrylic are tricky.   It goes from not enough to too much pretty quickly.   Make two cut outs.   If you don't screw up the first, then give the second to a friend. 

There are several threads here on people that made their own.   Mine has a crack.... but it's been there for 2 years.  One day I may replace. 

[jaylw314]

8 minutes ago, Yetti said:

Assuming we are not talking about a light in the wing.    Clamp the old one flat to new piece, trace it, drill holes (with special bit).  Cut out and sand edges.   Your choice if you want to try and heat gun the small bend or screw it on and call it good.     Heat guns and acrylic are tricky.   It goes from not enough to too much pretty quickly.   Make two cut outs.   If you don't screw up the first, then give the second to a friend. 

There are several threads here on people that made their own.   Mine has a crack.... but it's been there for 2 years.  One day I may replace. 

Ah, okay, I was actually thinking about the wingtip lenses.  Those would be pretty tricky to fabricate.

For cracks, you could try some solvent.  you just carefully run some solvent along the crack, and it gets pulled into it via capillary action, melts the acrylic a little, and fills the crack.  Kind of like acrylic aquariums or making plastic models.  If you're thinking of replacing it, you don't have too much to lose by trying.

[Steve W]

I did my mid-wing lens on the side I upgraded to LEDs and it worked well, even as yellowed as mine were. I ended up buying 2 kits from the autoaviation parts store, don't remember which one worked the best. 

[Brent]

As orionflt said, acrylic windshield and lens polishing kits make use of either a polish with a mild abrasive or progressively finer grit abrasive - super-fine sandpaper. 3M Finessit and Micro-Mesh are a couple products used in the window business. You can improve optics at the surface with these materials. However, with age, acrylic may exhibit sub-surface haze or cloudiness due to material degradation, moisture absorption, etc., that may not be polishable. As another member wrote, on the windshield, be careful with localized polishing as that can induce distortion. First step ALWAYS: flush the transparency with plenty of water and get any dirt, dust and grit off.

[lifendet]

I would spend the time making a new light lens rather than rubbing

Did you say making a new light lense? Have you done this before?

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

[INA201]

Took my lens to a glass shop and they cut one out of plexi for me and put the holes in for under $20. It fit perfect and has held up well.  I meant to say the hangar elves somehow made it happen, my mistake.

[ArtVandelay]

Took my lens to a glass shop and they cut one out of plexi for me and put the holes in for under $20. It fit perfect and has held up well.  I meant to say the hangar elves somehow made it happen, my mistake.

For those of us with wing mounted lights, we would have to bend it as well.


Tom

[carusoam]

There is a thread around here somewhere discussing the thermoforming/bending of acrylic sheet for that... or even if bending was enough... 

its been a while since that topic came up...

Best regards,

-a-

[DonMuncy]

Bending Plexiglas or Lexan is not difficult if the bend is not too sharp (like the K model). I have never tried one like a wing mounted lens. If I was going to try that, I would use Plexiglas. I bends easier than Lexan. If someone wanted to send me one to make a mold from, I would give it a try.

[RobertE]

I may have been one who commented in another thread regarding bending lexan or polycarbonate (one has a slightly higher melting point than the other - google has the answer).  Anyway, I couldn’t bear to spend $120 for a replacement lens for $20 of material.  The lense on my J model has a somewhat convex, complex shape.  All you need to do is pull out the old one, use plaster of paris or some such material for mimic the shape, drape the flat material you previously cut and drilled to size over it and place it in the oven at a temp about 50 degrees cooler than the melting point.  In about a half hour the material relaxes and conforms perfectly to the mold.  Earlier I tried the same approach with a heat gun but got it too hot in places, which produced bubbling.  Finally, whatever mold material you use will probably show cracks when dry.  No problem, just fill in the cracks and sand it to a generally smooth finish.  Also, if you have trouble using the old lens to produce the mold just start with a piece of material that can be sanded to produce the approximately proper convex shape.  Close is good enough.  For that mater, flat is good enough too if you don’t mind the gaps that are produced between the rim and the lens.  As a recent retiree I’ve got plenty of time to do small, low payoff projects, so when I couldn’t approach my airplane without seeing that gap I used the previously described approach.  I bet this approach would work for the more dramatic bend required for a leading edge light lens too.

[carusoam]

Nice forming experiement details, Bob!

Best regards,

-a-