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Plastic gauge face restoration

fpchief

Well-known member
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South Alabama
Could someone please direct me to the thread that showed how to make the plastic gauges clear again? Cant find it.

I am assuming using something like the headlight cover polisher.
 

Menaces Nemesis

"Little Black Truck" Conservator
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Can't help with the thread you're looking for, but how you polish the lenses is all relative to how damaged they are, and how nice you want them to be/look. After all, they're just pieces of plastic, so the typical Novus plastic polish, or headlight rejuve kits will help. But, along with the typical haze, many lenses have deep gouges, pits, overspray, and razor knife scoring around the edges where the masking was cut prior to each paint job. Polish isn't going to take out that kind of damage. If you've got something like nice, vintage SW gauges, and want them to actually be restored, then it requires removing the gauges from the truck, and carefully, methodically, prying the bezels off from the back side (a 1/8" regular screwdriver, with one of the tip corners radiused, works well). After the bezels are off, you now have a flat surface that you can go after with an orbital sander. You may want to go as rough as 150 grit to get all the damage out quickly, working your way up through grits until you get to 5000 or finer, then use the aforementioned polish to bring them back to a mirror finish. While the bezels are off, you can strip them bare, and give them the first paint job they've had in decades that doesn't have chips, dirt, hair, etc. in the finish... or, if you're not a tedious, perfectionist, S.O.B. like me, and your soul doesn't thrive on making vintage stuff work and look like brand new, just buy some new ones :)
 
Last edited:

ZiggyO

Well-known member
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Nebraska
I am going to throw in my experience with gauge faces (though they are not truck gauges) --- Back about 10 years ago now, when my dad's company was involved with spray welding, we had an issue with gauges on the spraying apparatus that would get their faces pitted, fogged, etc from the spraying process, we came up with a cheap solution that made them look almost new instead of replacing them each time for $$$. Imagine a dash lens that looked as if it were hit by a sand blaster-- we would take them, smooth them with some grinding compound, then coat the lenses with a marine grade lacquer, then use an auto grade clearcoat cutter (cutting compound) to buff them. it diddn't make them concours perfect, but it made them I would say about 95% + in terms of clarity-- so much so that you could easily read the fine graduations on the gauge from 4-6 feet away. These were 3 and 4 inch face gauges........ Think of it like chip repair on a windshield-- it makes it clear, but if you look closely, you can still see an imperfection..........

Z
 

cattlerepairman

Well-known member
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NORTH (Canada)
My five minute contribution:

 
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