Beogram 4000: Polishing the Hood

A last labor-of-beolove tribute to the Beogram 4000 that I restored in recent weeks: Time to polish the hood! It is always quite a workout. It usually takes me several hours in a multi-step process. This Beogram had fairly damaged plexiglass surfaces. Here are a few impressions:

Whenever there are deep scratches that one can feel with a fingernail, then it is time to crank out the 220 grit sand paper. With that the surface needs to be sanded until the deep marks are gone, and only the homogenous scratches from the sandpaper are visible. This hood definitely needed this drastic step. But first the B&O trim needed to be protected. It is very easy to 'delete' the B&O labels in the heat of battle when going at it with the sanding block. I usually use three layers of insulation tape:

After this I gave the 220 grit a go:

Looks almost like wood after this step. Once you have a smoothly sanded surface, it is time to work your way back to shininess. This is done by using about 10 grades of sand paper and micro-mesh policing cloths. This is finished with polishing liquid. It is important to change the sanding/polishing direction between every step. Also avoid rotating motions, it is best to just go in linear strokes. The chance in direction allows to see whether one has polished all the scratches left behind by the previous coarser step behind. Here are a few pictures taken in between the steps (not all are shown, but you get the idea):

After 400 grit:

After 800:

After 1800 Micro-Mesh

After 3200 Micro-Mesh:

After 6000 Micro-Mesh:

After Micro-Gloss polishing liquid:

And that is pretty much as good as this can get...it is virtually impossible to get back to 100% like new. But one can get pretty close. And this pretty much concludes the restoration process of this Beogram 4000!