Revitalizing 40 year old plastic lenses, plan B.

Tmoose · Oct 31, 2018

If there is no way to roll back time and make old brittle plastic tail light lenses youthful and supple, Step 2 would be use the old lenses to make molds to cast new ones.

What would be a good casting plastic that could be made red with decent transparency/translucency ?

thanks,

Dan T

btrueblood · Nov 1, 2018

Urethanes, maybe not the best stuff but pourable and readily available.

Sheet acrylic and polycarbonate can be readily thermoformed with low-cost molds.

dgallup · Nov 1, 2018

Might be cheaper & easier to 3D print them but the quality and material properties are all over the place. Are you sure you can't just buy new old stock?

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epoxybot · Nov 1, 2018

I have no idea where you are but where I live, we have Tap Plastics Linkand they sell clear casting resins & mold forming products. Clear Methyl methacrylate (Plexiglass Resin) and Polyester. It is also possible that a good boat supply house has some good candidate materials for this project.

3DDave · Nov 1, 2018

Smooth On has a good selection.

https://www.smooth-on.com/spotlight/red-buses-glacier-national-park-restored-crystal-clear/

Tmoose · Nov 2, 2018

thanks All,

Dan T in Massachusetts

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Revitalizing 40 year old plastic lenses, plan B.

Tmoose

Mechanical

btrueblood

Mechanical

dgallup

Automotive

epoxybot

Structural

3DDave

Aerospace

Tmoose

Mechanical

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