Cleaning Acrylic

[Dave Kurt]

I did a search before anyone gets frustrated with my question - got tired after looking through three pages, so...

Just engraved three acrylic awards and then noticed a haze (best I can describe) on the surface. The awards were delivered from the vendor shrink-wrapped in plastic. I tried liquid soap and a microfiber cloth to no avail. Any suggestions to get rid of the hazed film?

[Scott Erwin]

Have you tried Novus #3 - Heavy Scratch Remover --or-- #2 Fine Scratch Remover ?

[Roger Savatteri]

.


Just a guess.

I use it to clean and polish acrylic........it might work.

and you might have it, although it's bad for wood surfaces because of the silicone in it.

A can of spray PLEDGE.

I know, you don't believe me.

so,

Get a blank test piece of acrylic,

try it, spray with Pledge, wipe it with an old t-shirt

wipe/buff it with a fresh t-shirt.

see.......it works.

now, try it on the haze.



....r


ps. If that doesn't work I have other plastic cleaners that I could look in my shop tomorrow and suggest.

.

[Frank Corker]

I would give it a try with nail varnish remover. Always works for me (I don't wear nail varnish.... just thought I'd mention this at this point) it will remove the residue from the engraving. Also consider using methanol alcohol or rubbing alcohol. On clear acrylics keep away from abrasive stuff. An added suggestion for future is to engrave bottom up, instead of top down, reduces the residue.

[Dave Kurt]

This was reversed engraved. The top is where the haze is - not sure if I am explaining correctly but I do not think these are scratches. Hazy or foggy appearance on the clear see-through part of the award.

I will have them try alcohol tomorrow.

[Rodne Gold]

Jeez Frank , surprised you havent had any disasters with Nail varnish remover !!!
It is normally acetone and will make pex go milky if left too long on it , extruded that has been lasered will almost surely stress crack...
Silvo which is a very fine abraisive silver polish works well on acrylic , the brass one , brasso , is a little too violent.

A stupid question , is there perhaps a further protective plastic film on the awards??

I wonder if the awards were superglued in construction , often being near superglue or being wrapped soon after being superglued leaves a white milky haze on the items.

[Frank Corker]

Rodney I have heard and seen quite a few problems with the alcohol and acetone damaging the surface, especially after it has been flame polished, however I think it has to be down to the way the acrylic has been made. All of the acrylic I have without exception has not succumbed to crazing or cracking when I have applied acetone or alcohol. This includes before and after flame polishing.

The hazing that I think Dave is getting comes from the hot residue that comes off the engraving. It is very fine and when it comes to deep engraving, that fine dust that comes off must be hot and sticks to the surface. I will bet (not my hat by the way - a pound then) that the fine haze was towards the direction of the extractor fan holes. If it is, then I think I am right in what I have said.

[Mike Null]

I use denatured alcohol for cleaning plastics. The residue Frank is describing is quite normal and sometimes takes a little elbow grease to remove but it will remove nicely.

[Dave Kurt]

To clarify the type of award, the process we used to engrave it, and then our attempt to clean it:

JDS Shooting Star Square Acrylic. This piece has a shooting star design routed into the back and about 1 inch of clear acrylic to the front. We reverse engraved the backside (there is about 2 x 3 inches of engraving area) - nothing touched the front. In fact the award was face down on soft cloth during the engraving process.

During clean-up our engraving tech noticed the haze. He removed the protective plastic from a yet untouched Shooting Star Square and saw the same haze. This haze is not very noticeable straight on but very noticeable at angles and covers almost the entire front side.

We first tried distilled water and a microfiber cloth, liquid soap and then a small bit of alcohol, as suggested here. None of these efforts removed any of the haze. Two months ago we had a bad time with a couple crystal pieces from Laserbits so this obviously makes me quite frustrated. We have several Shooting Star Rounded acrylic awards in stock that have a 'crystal' clear surface. Ironically the client usually orders the rounded version but decided this time to try something new.

Looking through the JDS catalog I noticed a product labeled, "Award Glow" (the product picture shows "Award Glo") at $18. It is described as, "Puts a high gloss shine on Aluminum, Brass, Acrylic, Glass and more! Citrus based, easy and safe to use." Has anyone tried this stuff? At this point I am willing to tell my guys to start using Brasso!

[Frank Corker]

Well before you kick off using the brasso, how about letting us know if you have tried any of the suggestions that have been put above, at the minute you just keep clarifying!

[Mike Null]

Why don't you call JDS tech support and explain the problem to them. (before using Brasso)

[Richard Rumancik]

Dave, from what you say it seems like something on the protective film has either reacted with the acrylic or left a residue on the surface.

With all due respect to the posters who are suggesting various chemicals, you need to be careful with acrylic. It is considered very chemically sensitive. If you don't have a few "expendable" samples it is hard to do a bunch of experiments. Some chemicals will be destructive to the surface. So I can understand Dave's reluctance to try everything.

Alcohol can be very bad for some kinds of acrylics. Again, it depends on the alcohol and it depends on the acrylic.

There should be a way of polishing the surface but I'd tend to be conservative first and use plastic polishes etc (and get manufacturers suggestions) before using the heavy-duty methods of last resort.

[Martin Boekers]

Richard's right with being careful with what you use on acrylic I have had it "haze" with just the vapors of superglue.

Mike's suggestion was right on with contacting JDS and seeing what they recommend.


Marty

[Rodne Gold]

I fabricate 100's of acrylic items and trophies a day using cast and extruded perspex so Im going to be a little dogmatic based on my shops experience.
Acetone is a big no no - we make glues out of it by disolving chunks of acrylic in acetone , ether or chloroform. All these solvents are bad for any stress points in extruded - you need special glues for extruded (acryfix by Degussa)
To clean and degrease acrylic , use benzien or hot soapy water with a detergent like sunlight liquid soap...the latter being prefered.

The haze you talking about is most likely poor polishing (maybe overheated) and some microscratching , brasso will make it worse.
Silvo is a much finer abraisive and works well in a pinch. Residues are a problem with this and brasso however.
The awards like that star one are most likely either an embedment type of perspex (and it may be a waterclear resin rather than a true perspex/acrylic) or extruded ...most likely the latter.
The polishing process is generally a hard mop with a coarse tripoli followed by a linen mop with a finer quality , followed by fine tripoli on a finer softer mop and finally a finish with swansdown. If the stuff is overheated (and you will see drag marks when polishing) then you can never get it to crystal clear. Grit embedded in the mops are a problem..so you need to continuously run the mop against a straight edge to clear it.
A coupla places like novus , make good general purpose polishing formulations.
Personally I think the haze is a mnfgring fault and not yours. Offshore mnfgrng and less than stellar QC from their suppliers?

[Dave Kurt]

Mr Gold is probably correct - the tags my guy removed from each award read "Vietnam." No offense to those great folks (my dad and uncles spent some time there in the sixties), but this being the first time we see "Vietnam" on an award was not good.

We just got off the phone with JDS, they RMA'd the three pieces even though two were engraved, emphasized someone will peel the plastic and inspect each replacement piece, and send them out today. We should get them tomorrow.

We asked about the "Award Glo" and was told it should not be necessary to use this stuff on brand new awards - obviously something was wrong with these three pieces when they shipped.

Thanks to all for the concise and timely input as always. I will update this tomorrow when the replacement pieces arrive.

[Brian Robison]

Hi gang,
I think you misunderstood what Frank said on the bottom up engraving. He's talking about the engraving starting at the bottom of the piece and ending up at the top. Not engraving from the reverse side.
JDS is a good company and stands behind their products as does Johnson's Plastics.

[Dave Kurt]

Nope, understood fine. If you look up this award, it should only be engraved from the backside, hence reverse engraved.

[Brian Robison]

Hi Dave,
Still wondering. Does the laser start at the bottom of the item and go up or at the top and go down (like a printer?) Not talking about the back side reverse engraving.

[Brian Robison]

Dave,
I'm not sure all lasers have the bottom up engraving option, I know the Epilog does.

[Dave Kurt]

Not sure about other laser systems either - we also use Epilog machines, which as you mentioned has a bottom-up/top-down setting. We use this feature for items that generate debris.

[Dave Kurt]

Received the replacement pieces from JDS, these with Taiwan labels. The surfaces were still hazy but not as bad as the first three.

Even though we asked that someone inspect these new pieces before they shipped, all three arrived shrink wrapped as usual. Not sure if an inspection took place, but I am assuming if not, it probably was not important enough to devote any time to doing.

The clients feedback will ultimately be the deciding factor.