Fixing Scratched CDs, DVDs and Game Discs
Some folks swear by those expensive commercial repair kits. Some folks swear by Brasso. Or even toothpaste.
Funny how some people get married to commercial CD repair kits. Over the years, I've bought them, tried them, and discarded every last one. Even the holy Disc DR. Yeah, it used to work great, back in the late 90's when it first came out and used a more abrasive sanding wheel, but today it does little more than wipe away dirt. The abrasive wheels are too fine to remove serious scratches. Besides, they wear out after a couple of discs, which is probably by design, so consumers (an apt word) can go out and buy more. What a rip-off!
I took a Metals class over the summer and learned more than I thought possible about sanding and polishing. We also did some resin casting, so I got caught up on polishing plastics, too. Learning from people who do this stuff for a living is really the way to go.
Anyhow, I'm done with Brasso. It dries too slowly. Quite often, it would leave discs hazy, which is hard for a laser to read through. Some of the plastic polishers on the market also leave CDs hazy, which is to say that they're not all created equal.
Use toothpaste on your teeth. Don't spend a dime on mechanical or electric cleaners and polishers—it's a scam! Manufacturers can't make devices abrasive enough for fear of litigation, so all you'll end up with is something that does the same thing as a squirt of Windex and an old T-shirt!
The WORST scratch I've EVER seen was made by an X-Box 360 on my kid's Gears of War disc. We threw away the last game his X-Box scratched (Oblivion), because I didn't know how to fix SERIOUS scratches—I was still using Brasso back then. But I fixed this last one, and if I can fix an X-Box 360-scratched disc, I can fix anything. The X-Box 360 can gouge DEEP circumferential scratches that are a bear to remove.
I also get a lot of CDs and DVDs from the local library. Many are scratched too badly to play or rip. I'm always able to fix them myself.
I generally use three grades of 3M wet-dry emery paper: 1500, 2000, and 2500. These papers do not polish CDs—they remove scratches by sanding the entire surface down. For final polishing, I use Meguiar's PlastX Clear Plastic Cleaner & Polish. Meguiar’s PlastX can often repair minor scratches by itself, without all the sanding—it’s just that good.
I will use 1500-grit on BADLY scratched surfaces, and a bad X-Box 360 disc might even require 1000-grit—unless you want to spend all day sanding. For minor repairs, I start with 2000-grit.
You buy the emery paper in sheets from auto supply joints, and cut little pieces off as needed (roughly 1/2 inch by 2 inches). The stuff wears down after a few CDs, and you'll want fresh pieces to keep things moving quickly.
You may have heard that you're only supposed to sand or polish radially— between the circumference and center of the disc. That's wrong.
In practice, sanding and polishing are done with perpendicular movements and increasingly finer grades of emery paper. You sand in one direction with a rough paper, then sand in a perpendicular direction with a finer paper, repeating this until you've got the finish you desire. On a CD or DVD, it looks like this:
Since I always polish the same way, I have to plan backwards from the polishing step to know which direction to start sanding in. That is, each new step crisscrosses the previous step, and I always polish in the roughly circumferential pattern seen above.
I let my emery paper soak in the sink for a few minutes before using it. I clean my work area off, then wet it (the water protects the label side from scratches). You also wet both sides of the disc, and set it label side down on the wet surface.
After judging the severity of the scratches, I pick an emery paper that will efficiently handle the rough work. According to the plan I've already developed in my head, I sand in one of the patterns seen above, until I no longer see the worst scratches.
After working the scratches out with the rough paper, I switch to the next finer paper and sand in the other pattern above. Every time you change emery paper, you sand in a different, criss-crossing pattern
After a sanding with fine 2500-grit, I towel-dry the disc and move to a dry work place. I put the disc label-side down on a piece of clean paper, then apply three or four small drops of Meguiar's PlastX. Using a clean scrap of old cotton T-shirt, I polish in the circumferential pattern you see above—it's fast and effective. The cool thing is that you don't have to leave the Meguiar's to dry on the disc—it's not like waxing the car. You basically polish until your cloth has absorbed all the excess goop and the disc is bright & shiny, which doesn't take long at all. Get a good polish on your discs, all the way out to the outermost edges. Use a second, clean scrap of cotton T-shirt if you need it. Don't leave any haziness (from the wet sanding) behind, or you may have trouble reading & ripping later. I use the Meguiar's because, if used properly, it never leaves a hazy residue on the plastic, the way some other plastic polishers (including Brasso) often do.
Written down this way, it sounds like a terrible bit of effort. In reality, it's no more than five to ten minutes per disc, depending upon how bad the damage is.
There is no mechanical or electric CD scratch remover on the market that can do what you can do with your own two hands and a little emery paper. Serious scratches require more abrasive action than is available with any commercial product. Seriously, every last one is a money-wasting rip-off.
The Meguiar's costs a few bucks and will last you the rest of your life. 3M wet-dry emery paper is very cheap. Don't settle for other brands, as the abrasive may come off when the paper gets wet, which defeats the entire purpose of wet sanding, doesn't it?
While emory paper is made to very high grades (up to 8000-grit, if memory serves), these can only be had from suppliers who deal with jewelers and other artists, such as Rio Grande. Besides, you don't really need anything finer than 2500 or 3000-grit for work with plastics.
CDs and DVDs and console discs are all the same when it comes to fixing scratches. If you can fix one, you can fix them all. DVDs and console discs are more susceptible to error when scratched, because the data is packed in tighter physical spaces—a little scratch can obscure a LOT of data.
As I've said, the worst scratches I've seen are made by the X-Box 360. I suspect the laser lens is coming in direct contact with a spinning disc. I've started working these scratches out with 1000 or 1500-grit emery paper.
Scratches on the data side of a disc aren't as serious as scratches on the label side. A disc's data layer is closer to the label side than the other. For this reason, a good scratch on the label side can permanently destroy any disc—no amount of sanding or polishing can repair physical damage to the data layer.
That's everything I can think of. I fix a LOT of discs, and I'd like to think I've pretty much got it down to a science at this point.
So go fix some scratches already!
Excellent guide -
01-01-2008, 03:08 AM
But I've often tried some of your above desperate methods first (like tooth paste and so on) 
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