Tinted Companionway Door

 

I was fortunate to find a scrape piece of acrylic that was tinted and .5 inch thick. It was from an old junk boat. The acrylic had many scratches on it and was not the correct shape for my companionway. I knew by looking at this item that I had an opportunity to learn two new skills: cutting  and sanding/polishing acrylic.

I used my current companionway doors as a templated and cut the plastic after marking cut lines with tape. Using a track saw and cutting approximately .12 -.24 inches in each pass as low blade speed made the cut clean without danger of cracking or gouging edges.

Picture on the left displays the huge amount of crazing on the plastic. All of which needs to be removed.

Picture on the right displays top part that is opaque (sanded area) with bottom area clear (sanded followed by polishing).

Bottom left has been sanded and polished; Bottom right is spot checked for additional areas to be sanded and polished again.

 

The picture on bottom left displays most of the scratches and crazing removed. The picture on the bottom right displays one small area that needed additional attention. This entire project took lots of experimenting with sand paper grits, and polish compounds at different speeds to get the feel and knowledge of what process and medium worked best.

The picture below is the end result of all that experimenting sanding and polishing.