Is this repairable with Micromesh?

[-Z-]

Hi chaps, wife came back to the M5 to find someone had clattered it. The SMART repair people have advised that a new headlight is needed but a quick google gives me hope that a Micromesh kit might do the job. If it needs to be thrown in the bin I might as well have a stab at fixing it.

Can anyone advise on which kit I need and if I need a drill sander first?

Cheers

p.s. apologies for the rotation, it's in the correct orientation on my laptop ?!

[richs2891]

Sorry not tried those kits, but looking at them its worth trying.
How have they managed to scratch the light and miss the bodywork? A Bag or a shopping trolley ?

[MechTech]

The micromesh kits are primarily used on polycarbonates such as the canopies on jets and helicoptors (we use them in the RAF as a standard practice to blend out damage if its only minor). each grade needs to be lubricated when used and for each grade (reducing in coarseness)you work at 90 degrees to the previous one so you're actually just taking off the 'peaks' of the scratches rather than taking down more material from both the 'peaks' and 'troughs' too. once down to the finest grade, use the plastic polish provided or if that isn't available, good old toothpaste works a treat as its very mildly abrasive and a diminishing compound. use a lint-free cloth for the polish as it prevents the small pieces that come off from becoming trapped and acting as an abrasive paste component. if you need to, you can generally skip a grade of paper but it requires more time and the end result is usually a bit rubbish tbh.

There's two types of micromesh kits, for plastics and metals, the metals one is marked as MX if memory serves (and the grades are different).

If you use it right, you can attain an almost optically-correct repair on some really quite deep scratches.

The plastic repair kit can be used on metals or plastics, but it doesn't work both ways unfortunately. so if you get the kit and you feel bored one evening you can get the kitchen utensils to a nice mirror finish in next to no time and the mrs will love ya for it lol! (just don't do it on the living room floor as I did as it just leads to being moaned at for making a mess lol!)


OR... the other option is the plastic cutting/polishing compound from Halfords and then car polish/toothpaste... results aren't as good but it costs far less and is easier to get hold of :-)

If you do go the micromesh route, feel free to lob me a message and i'll give advice if needed as I do it for a day job (aircraft technician).

John


>>> this is a link to the kit you need:

http://www.air-craft.net/acatalog/Micro-Mesh-Plast...

Edited by MechTech on Wednesday 17th February 02:52