Beogram 4002 (5513): Polishing the Hood

The final step in the restoration of a Beogram is usually polishing the plexiglass hood. Like most Beogram 4002s this unit also had some pretty deep scratches:

This particular hood also had a 'hot stamped' B&O logo at the location of the platter center pin:

I did my usual polishing sequence starting out with 220 grit dry sand paper to planarize the surface below the deepest scratches. This step is necessary if the scratches can be felt with a fingernail. It makes the hood look like a piece of wood:

If the scratches cannot be felt, one can try to start with 320 or 400 grit. You will see immediately if these papers can remove the scratches that are present or not. After the 220 step I polished it back to translucency using 320 and 400 grit and then a full set of Micro-Mesh polishing cloths. There is a blog entry that shows detailed pictures of the process on the example of a Beogram 4000 hood. This is hard work and usually takes me about three hours. Here is a picture of the end result:

When comparing a polished original hood to a new one, one needs to be aware that new hoods emerge from a mold and can be truly scratch free, whereas the polishing process of course always leaves a certain residual amount of small scratches. But the improvement resulting from the polishing process is usually remarkable when compared to the original condition of the hood.