Polishing the headlights from the inside with their own hands: instruction, useful advice, feedback

Car care is not only periodicvisits to maintenance centers, but also the careful attitude of the owner to him. To the car looked like new, did not have visually noticeable defects, it is important to regularly pay attention to every detail, including headlights. After all, they are not just a lighting device. The "eyes" of the car are the highlight of his design.

Why do I need to polish the lights?

Unfortunately, the appearance of lightingdevices with each year of operation of the vehicle only worsens. Lanterns fade, become yellow, scratched. When looking at such headlights, the first thing that comes to mind is to replace them urgently, but for sure every motorist knows how expensive this procedure is. Do not rush with radical measures!

There are a lot of options that will help restore the former gloss machine at home. Polishing the lights with your own hands is a great way to transform a car with minimal financial costs.

What should I buy for home polishing lights?

Services to restore presentabilitythe appearance of a car is provided in specialized technical centers and car washes. Polishing the headlights from the inside and outside, as a rule, is not a separate type of service, and therefore it is carried out in conjunction with other works. Independently to put in order lanterns on the car any interested person can. Here's what you need for this:

• shampoo for car body;
• soft, lint-free towels;
• Adhesive tape (normal scotch is suitable);
• Sandpaper of fine and coarse grain;
• atomizer for liquid;
• special paste for polishing;
• grinding machine (if possible);
• finishing polish.

With your hands: the main principles of polishing the headlights from the outside and inside

Acquire half of the above funds are notIt is necessary in the presence of a grinding machine, by means of which it is possible to brighten the lighting devices from the outside in a matter of minutes. When polishing the headlights from the inside, on the contrary, it is more convenient to work with your hands.

To ensure that the final result meets expectations, it is important to pay attention to the basic rules of processing automobile lanterns at home:

• The procedure should not be carried out once: in the polishing the lights will be needed after a couple of years.
• To use abrasives, it is necessary to resort only when other means are powerless (with chips, scratches, serious damages).
• When doing polishing, press on the glass (plastic) car headlight can not.
• To wash the car it is undesirable to use aggressive chemistry - such mixtures make the surface of the body vulnerable and weakened.
• Do not polish at temperatures above +20 ° C and below -10 ° C. If the temperature regime is ignored, the risk of deformation of the light emitter increases several times.

Substance for the restoration of automobile headlights at home

Polishing the headlights from the inside is done much less often thanfrom the outside. To clean the inner surface, you have to disassemble the lighting device, and this, in turn, will take additional time. In addition, during disassembly, there is always the risk of damaging the headlight. To polish from the inside resorted in the event that the external surface treatment did not affect its state and light transmission.

Deciding to transform the surface of automotivelanterns, you should think about the choice of polishing paste. The substance is selected according to various parameters, but the priority is given to the state of the polished surface. But even with serious violations of its integrity, it is undesirable to make a choice in favor of aggressive compositions with solid particles. In the presence of scratches and chips, defects are filled with a polymer solution or varnish. Then the treated surface is thoroughly dried and only then proceed to polish the headlights with your own hands. From the inside at home it can be done both with the help of professional GOI paste, which is sold in any auto shop, and using ordinary toothpaste.

Than to grind a surface: GOI paste

In the first case, it is a mixture usedfor grinding plastic products. Today, however, as well as many years ago, GOI paste is still produced in jars or solid bars. Convenient creamy consistency allows you to economically use the substance. The instructions for polishing the headlights from the inside with the help of GOI paste can be briefly described as follows:

• A soft mixture is applied to a soft cloth.
• Wipe the paste carefully, taking care not to scratch the surface. It is desirable to avoid sudden movements.
• To remove the mixture from unwanted areas use kerosene.

Tooth-paste for polishing plastic headlights

The polishing process itself will not havefundamental differences due to the change of active substance. The versatility of the chemical composition of the toothpaste makes it possible to use it for glass and plastic headlights. In addition, the mass is easily soluble in water, there is no need to use a special solvent.

However, in comparison with GOI paste, which simultaneously polishes and polishes the surface, it takes more time to surface the toothpaste.

Эффективной полиролью можно назвать смесь зубной paste and GOI in equal proportion. The obtained composition copes well with the cleaning of scratches on the plastic, therefore, for polishing the glass, the lights from inside are rarely used.

How to start surface treatment?

Armed with all the necessary tools and polishing compounds, you can get to work. Conventionally, the polishing of headlights is divided into several stages:

• preparatory stage;
• selection of sandpaper;
• polishing the outside;
• processing the inside of the headlamp.

The principle of preparation for the procedureis the maximum cleansing of all nearby surfaces of the body. For high-quality polishing of headlights at home, you need to lather every detail with your own hands, make shampoo foam and wash it off with water. You can wash the car several times in a row in order to make sure that there is no dust or sand. Any solid particles can damage the surface during sanding.

How to choose sandpaper for manual grinding?

Starting grinding and polishing works, it is necessary to secure the parts of the car body adjacent to the headlights. The joints of the paintwork with the plastic headlight are preferably taped.

At the stage of direct grinding the outerThe side of car lights is important not to be mistaken with the choice of sandpaper. The principle is this: the more noticeable the damage on the plastic, the more abrasive the material is needed.

If initially the headlight is in badcondition, should begin with the use of coarse sandpaper - from 600 units. Subsequent grinding is performed with smaller materials. To polish the headlights from the inside with their own hands they begin, as a rule, immediately with small skins.

Grinding down the outside of the headlamp

It is worth noting that for polishing glass headlightschoose mixtures with more solid particles. To achieve the desired result will help diamond paste. The method of its application has no significant differences from the previous one. Proper handling of automotive headlights implies:

1. Moistening an emery sheet and applying prepared paste to it.
2. Grinding is performed in circular motions in the cruciform direction: up-down, right-left.
3. After the first procedure, the remains of the paste and abrasives must be washed off with clean water.
4. Then polishing continues with fine-grained paper.
5. In the presence of a machine or drill, equipped with a polishing wheel, grinding is performed for 5-7 minutes.

Machine polished and finished varnish

After polishing, the surface of the headlights will becomematt, but fear it does not need: after polishing the car will shine again. Before polishing the headlights, you must wipe the plastic microfiber. Further processing will occur as follows:

1. A polishing head is put on a typewriter (a drill or a grinder can be used instead).
2. The minimum amount of polish is applied to the disc of the device, after which at low speeds the paste is gently distributed over the surface of the illuminator.
3. It is necessary to polish the headlights smoothly, in a circle, moving towards the edge from the center.
4. It is important to ensure that the surface of the lantern is not heated by friction polishing device.
5. Each headlamp needs to be processed for 5-7 minutes.

For fixing the polishing effect, additional protection means are applied to the headlights - varnish or wax polish.

To cover the glass surface will be requiredMuch more time, it is important to give the varnish to completely dry. Otherwise, the headlamp cover will swell and peel off in the near future. As soon as the finishing polish dries, the surface is polished last time.

How to polish the spotlight from the inside: process features

The final stage will be the internal polishingheadlights with their own hands. At home, toothpaste will be an ideal tool for processing plastic from the inside. As already mentioned, not everyone faces the need to polish the headlights on the inside. Nevertheless, even a beginner is able to cope with such work. There are no significant differences between the external processing of headlights and polishing from the inside, the main thing is to act according to the proposed step-by-step instructions:

1. It is necessary to remove the adhesive tape that connected the edges of the headlight and the metal of the body, then dismantle the headlight from the car.
2. If the glass has cracks that are noticeable only from the inside, there is no point in polishing it - such a lighting device must be replaced with a new one.
3. In the absence of defects, the headlamp cap is washed thoroughly.
4. Grinding the headlights from the inside is done entirely by hand.
5. It is necessary to use sandpaper of fine granularity. For grinding a small enough pea toothpaste.

Polishing the inside of the plastic headlampperformed by the principle previously described. In order to qualitatively clean it from the inside, it will take additional time, but by assembling the headlamp and mounting it into place, everyone can be proud of the work done!