Headlight/plastic restoration

[repare-brise]

Hi

I'm interested in adding plastic restoration to my bag of tricks(I of course do WSR, and do scratch removal in glass in a big way, it accounts ofr about 30% of my business). I would like to get your valued imputs on which products you use, how long does it take to do a typical HL, is your system chemical based or abrasive based, and what do you charge. I am aware that all this info is probable archived hear, but the closest that I get to high speed internet is running to the computer once the page has eventually loaded, so archive searchs take more time than I have.

Merci

[magicogar]

I was curious to see if this really works so I wet sand my headlights and used a 3M scratch removal liquid afterwards. Now the old headlight on the right matches the new one on the left. The downside...just alotta handwork.

[CPR]

There are alot of different ways to do headlights, the poly hog from glass technology is very good, the bright solutions kit is ok. You have to be real careful about wet sanding on headlights, some have a protective coating and if you bite through it you have ruined the light.

There is also a company called clear again that has the best system I have ever seen, you have to work for them to get the supplies. Most of the lights I do get wetsanded with 600 then 800 and sometimes even 1000 grit, after that they get clearcoated. This complicates things because there are only a few brands of clear that work good, clear is expensive and you will waste alot of it unless there are 4-5 cars lined up to be sprayed.

Shooting clear takes alot of practice, there is a fine line between it looking dull and having it run on you. I have a painting background so it's a piece of cake for me. My suggestion is to look in the dumpsters at bodyshops and grab all the headlights you can, and experement with them it's about the best way to learn your limitations.

[the big welshman]

Hello there ,I have the Poly Hog Kit from GT.It works quit well .I am still getting into it.I did ruin my own headlights on my Toyota Tacoma when using the abrasive I took to much of the film off and it was dull when I finnished with it.I am still practising with it .I find it does not work well with after market headlights.-- I tell the car dealer that if you have any yellow headlights I will try and clean one side to see if I can get rid of the yellow at no charge if it comes out ,I will charge a small fee-Put it this way the car dealer will have to replace the headlight any way for the customer, safety reasons of being not able to see.--- When purchasing the poly hog I told GT that I would just like to buy the kit -no drills Buy drills yourself ie portable or with a cable ie 110 volt .It is to much hard work doing this by hand you will be better using a power unit to do this operation---

[screenman]

Will you earn as much per hour doing headlamps or would you be better off finding another screen to repair.

[repare-brise]

I probably wont make as much per hour, but I will be filling a need that my competition doesn't. Plus I have a market in the plastics industry for scratch removal that is quite interesting both technically and financaly.

Merci

[glassdoctor]

Some headlights are really a lot of work to make them look good. But others are pretty easy money, like wsr. But it's unlikey that you can find a bunch of headlights to do anyway. If you could find enough to keep you busy all day, then you could make about as much money as in wsr. At about $40 and 20-30 minutes per car, it's not bad. But I have worked on some cars for a good hour.

Welshman, your headlight is not ruined, it just needs redone. Keep working with it.