I remember reading somewhere that you can use a heatgun to get rid of scratches on the plastic door panals. Is that true? Is it safe? What is the best way to do it? Thanks!

 

I get rid of scratches on plastic by pretending I can't see them. Works for me.

 

I had heard of using a heatgun to pop a mis-shaped bumper back to original shape but not removing scratches though. I doubt you would wanna heatgun to be able to melt the paint to hide a scratch.

 

sounds nasty. lol.

 

http://autopia.org/forum/showthread....light=heat+gun This is where I got the idea. It is from a Z owner. Can I trust them?

 

Here is the post for the lazy people.

Your not going to believe this but this is what I just did like one hour ago and it worked amazingly.

I was at a car show this past weekend and some of my trunk interior panels are scratched from carrying stuff years ago in the trunk. I have purchased brand new panels that I had planned to install right before our national Z convention in August.

At the show this past weekend this fellow Z'er came up to me and said that I could take out the scratches with a heat gun. He told me that he does it all the time and it is his part time business. He told me not to use a hair dryer but use a heat gun like they use for paint removal. I looked at him like he was nuts.

Well..I said what the heck, I have new panels anyway. Today I purchased a heat gun at Lowes for $30.00 and decided to give it a try.

I cleaned the panels completely to remove all protectorants. I lightly ran the gun over the scratch and IT DISAPPEARRED !!!!

I was blown away. The guy says that the heat cause the plastic to go back to its original form. Now there was a small circle around the scratch area from the heat. I went over the panels with NXT Tech Protectorant and they look brand new. I am sure if you look close enough or remove the protectorant from the panel that you might be able to see something.

Trust me its enough to fool a judge a a Concours de Elegance show.

 

i also remember somebody saying the same thing on this forum. I think they were complaining about scratches on the rear seat storage compartment. I also have scratches there and one on my center dash panel piece that I would like try this on. If you do it let us know how it goes

 

Damn you this place has a fix for just about anything. Good job.

 

i think someone here used a blow torch to remove scratches on a glove box.

should be able to find it by searching

 

What was the wattage of your heat gun?

 

16 year old post, I don't think you'll get a response, but I could be wrong.

Try a Google search for the topic.

 

I have a tab open on my phone browser for exactly this process. The addition is that you use a textured die of sorts to replace the lost texture on the plastic. I haven't tried this yet, but it's on my to do list to figure out the specifics and possibly execute.