There are individuals here from many different disciplines and work backgrounds, hopefully I can luck into someone to answer my question at the end of the following.
Trying to restore/renew some of the shine (or some semblance of it) to old dirty, oxidized and sun bleached plastic, in this case from a Stihl chainsaw. I have enough good parts from two 044's to make one running saw. Virtually all the plastic is solid, unbroken or cracked with bolt holes intact. Unfortunately, every bit of it is incredibly filthy. Washing first then trying various things like acetone was worthless. I found using a single edge razor blade as a scraper gets me through the worse of it, then sanding with increasingly finer wet-dry sandpaper get the Stihl orange back close enough (same sanding procedure as when restoring clarity to plastic headlights). Now how to get some shine? Going back thirty years ago we were machining shapes into a hard, clear plastic of some sort. The finished product need to be transparent but the just machined surface ended up milky white. A co-worker came up with a chemical fluid, in a quart can that when lightly flooded onto the machined areas of the plastic the plastic melts. As it evaporates the part became clear, but - wipe it with a rag you were back to cloudy. What chemical might we of been using?
Trying to restore/renew some of the shine (or some semblance of it) to old dirty, oxidized and sun bleached plastic, in this case from a Stihl chainsaw. I have enough good parts from two 044's to make one running saw. Virtually all the plastic is solid, unbroken or cracked with bolt holes intact. Unfortunately, every bit of it is incredibly filthy. Washing first then trying various things like acetone was worthless. I found using a single edge razor blade as a scraper gets me through the worse of it, then sanding with increasingly finer wet-dry sandpaper get the Stihl orange back close enough (same sanding procedure as when restoring clarity to plastic headlights). Now how to get some shine? Going back thirty years ago we were machining shapes into a hard, clear plastic of some sort. The finished product need to be transparent but the just machined surface ended up milky white. A co-worker came up with a chemical fluid, in a quart can that when lightly flooded onto the machined areas of the plastic the plastic melts. As it evaporates the part became clear, but - wipe it with a rag you were back to cloudy. What chemical might we of been using?
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