Matt's RV-8 Project



Matt Dralle's RV-8 Project
' style=
Date:  11-20-2008
Number of Hours:  1.00
Manual Reference:  
Brief Description:  Canopy Scratch Removal - Part 1

During the fitting of the Plexiglass canopy on my RV-8, I managed to put some pretty disheartening scratches in the windscreen section. You can see from the pictures that they looked pretty bad. A call to Van's revealed that a replacement canopy would be $640 + $250 shipping to California! Ack.

So what to do... A bit of surfing and I found this "Scratch Off" windshield repair kit for $35 on the Aircraft Spruce web site:

http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/cspages/scratchoff.php

Frankly, it just seemed too good to be true. Nothing for $35 could be that "magic" I thought, but what did I have to lose at this point....

Well, the kit arrived yesterday and I decided to give it a try tonight. In a word: WOW! In about 2 hours the windscreen looked as good as new - no kidding - AS GOOD AS NEW! The pictures really don't do the repair justice. It looks better in person.

There are basically two sponges in the kit with four decreasingly porous pastes. You just put some of the first paste on the sponge and buff it in with a drill at 1200 RPM or less. Then you wash everything down good including the sponge and windshield with warm water. Then you use the next finer paste and repeat the process. Etc, etc, until you've used the 4th paste that is kind of like car wax.

Frankly, the scratches were gone after the first application of paste - I started at #2 based on the instructions and the "observed severity" of the scratch depth.

So, the bottom line is, if you've got scuffs or mild scratches in your Plexiglass buy this repair kit. It works!
' style=

Canopy - Scratches From Fitting

Canopy - Scratches From Fitting

' style=

Scratch Off Kit - The Box

Scratch Off Kit - The Box

' style=

Scratch Off Kit - Goodies Inside...

Scratch Off Kit - Goodies Inside...

' style=










Copyright © 2008-2024 Matt Dralle. All Rights Reserved.