Plastic Polishing Questions

I am a product engineer of Foxsemicon Integrated Technology Inc. in Taiwan. I look for the process of "Vapor Polish" on internet. And it shows me that your company has owned this process of vapor polish on your company website. Would you supply the information of vapor polish for me, or tell me where I can find the information including the equipment and technique. I will be glad for your reply.
Plastic vapor polishing is a proprietary process. I am sorry but we cannot divulge our methodology. I do not believe that anyone sells equipment for the process

I am restoring a vintage boat and am looking for someone to polish the 45 year old windshield. Is this a service that you might offer or do you have any recommendations?
Sorry, that is not something we do. You are best off trying to buff it yourself with a rotary or vibratory buffer and a good compound. If it is not too bad you could do it by hand. Test in a small corner before proceeding to the entire windshield. Supplies are available at www.mcmaster.com

I have an oring seal in Acrylic and Polycarbonate which is not sealing well. How can I repair the groove?
Considering the three standard plastic polishing methods of vapor polishing, buffing and flame polishing there is really only one choice. Flame polishing will not get down in the groove and inexperienced operators frequently melt their parts. Vapor polishing works well on polycarbonate but not as well on acrylic. In addition, the vapor polishing will smooth the surface but does not remove tool marks. The best choice is buffing. A light buffing compound with either a dremel tool or cotton cloth if the part can rotate will achieve the best finish. Buffing can have a fairly aggresive blending and smoothing action to remove heavy tool marks.

I want to design a light pipe in polycarbonate. What is the best finish you can achieve on the mating surface?
Plastic finish quality relates to part configuration. Very low numbers can be achieved through a combination of machining and polishing on flat surfaces. Bores are somewhat more difficult because of the type of tool used and access issues. From a general sense, a typical plastic machined finish can approach 20 microinches with plastic polishing improving it 5 to 10 microinches better. Bores and internal features vary from there and are largely part/configuration specific.

I was wondering if your company offers a plastic (polycarbonate) polishing service. If so, would you polish plastic parts that we would send to you, or do you only perform this service on parts that you manufacture?
We would be happy to polish parts that your send us. Please be aware the polishing quality is directly related to machining finish and cleanliness. The best job is typically done when we produce the parts ourselves as we have the proper coolant and handling techniques.

Please let me know what you feel the achievable surface roughness after vapor polishing may be for this particular shape. 15 microinches is a little too high for my application, but our discussion left me with the impression that you may be able to improve the spec for a simple shape like this one.
Plastic surface finish is related to part configuration. A simple shape such as yours (long hexagon), can typically be produced to less than 15 microinches when combined with vapor polishing.

We are interreseted in learning about the possibility of polishing optical polycarbonate components. How well can your vapor polish process bring up the surface finish on a machined PC part? Does it distort the surface? How fine must the surface finish be before vapor polishing? What is your turnaround time?
The surface will improve 5 - 10 micro inches. It does not distort or change the size dimensionally. The machined finished is very critical as vapor polishing does not remove the tool marks it only makes them clear. Also important is that the part needs to be very clean, no oils or grease. Our turnaround time is about one week.

We have an acrylic dome for a scanning lidar system that was machined in-house but we do not have the ability to get an optical finish on it. I do not have an image of the part right now, but can supply one. It is a slightly tapered cylinder, from just over 3" to just under 3" diameter and 3" long, with one end closed and the other open with an external mounting flange. The walls are 1/4" thick and lathe finished to a semi-transparent but still frosted finish. Only the walls of the cylinder need to be optical, the end cap and flange do not. Would it be possible for you to do the finishing on this piece, and if so can you give me a ballpark cost? Thanks!
Sorry on single piece items, we typically do not get involved. We focus on production only. If you want to do it yourself, try www.mcmaster.com for buffing wheels, cloth and rouge.

We're doing a custom paint job on an Army Humvee, for the Army. Our situation is, the tail lights. We can't find a place to readily replace them and they're in fairly bad shape, with dulling by the sun etc. I'm wondering if they can be polished. If so, would you share the best way to polish them, i.e., what compounds, high or low speeds with a polishing wheel etc.
A good question, a simple cotton buffing wheel and some various grit compounds will work fine. Test in a small area to be certain you are not damaging it. Work from rough to fine. Low speeds on the wheel so that you do not burn the plastic.

Which plastic polishes the best?
That depends, polycarbonate is very clear with vapor polishing. Acrylics work best with flame polishing. Keep in mind, vapor polishing can cover internals and threads while flame polishing is good for large flat areas.