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You did a good job on those headlights, they were in rough shape. I have done quite a few headdlight restorations and I always start with 500 grit. I do them by machine, with the 3" discs. Looking at your before pictures, I can tell the factory coating had most likely hardened at the top of...

I think it's always safer to finish with the DA instead of a rotary. Therefore if you have removed the major defects with the rotary, polishing as a final step with the DA should go fairly quickly.

You can use the Meguiar's Unigrit paper, they make it in grits up to 3000.

How well will it bond to headlights, since the coating is often removed by sanding when they are being refinished? You are stating the coating once applied and fully cured will not scratch as easily as clear coat?

Exactly, up here in Canada it's not always super hot. Most of the clients I do work for are not patient at all, even 1 hour seems to long for me to work on their headlights sometimes.

That is an awesome review you did, great work and thanks for having taken the time to put everything together, I'm sure it was not easy to do. :props:

I was looking into offering this to my customers. It works well, I tried it on a scrap headlight, the results were great. Only problem is that my customers don't want to let the car sit for several hours, they usually need the car right away, so this is not possible for me. As someone else...

Thanks for answering my question, however I have another one. How does this coating work exactly, does it cross link and harden like clear coat? Is it really as permanent as a clear coat is?

I do a lot of headlight restorations so I am interested in using Opti Coat to protect them. How long does it take to dry once you apply it?

Since I have some real 2 part automotive clear coat, I tried to wipe some on a scrap headlight I have. It did not work well at all, it left big streaks. Obviously real clear coat is meant to be sprayed, not wiped or brushed on, however I wanted to try it out just to see what would happen.

I am really liking this discussion, it's getting very interesting. Yeah 1000 grit is high enough if you are using automotive clear coat since it has a higher build, it's thicker. I would also be curious to know what you charge for clearing them, I would like to offer this to my customers. I...

In my experience, Megs Ultimate Compound is also good when used as a 1 step polish, however it doesn't contain any wax in it, so you need to apply your LSP separately.

For all of you that apply the urethane, how long does it take to dry on average? Have you ever tried using a heat gun to speed up the drying process?

That's for sure, this is why I would like to offer something more durable to my customers. I'll try to get myself some scrap headlights to test this on as well and post the results.

I have done several headlight restorations, however never with the spar urethane method. I usually just polish them and apply a high quality paint sealant, like Blackfire Wet Diamond. I tried sanding them by machine and honestly I did not like doing it this way, I prefer by hand. By machine...

It will definitely bond better if you don't polish the headlights, however you must clean the lights very well with a wax and grease remover or mineral spirits. Think of it this way, when a body shop paints a car, after they have sanded and cleaned it, do they polish it before spraying the...

Wow...those look amazing...did you thin the urethane with mineral spirits? There is no need to polish the lights before applying the urethane. When you apply clear coat, paint, varnish etc. you need the sanding marks so that your coating has something to bite into. It may still stick of you...

I did not thin it, could this be my problem? I don't see how it would affect how it feels after it's dried, whether it's thinned or not.

I tried this method yesterday on a scrap set of lights. The urethane varnish leaves the light sort of sticky, it does not feel smooth like when you just wetsand the headlights.

Mike also mentions that a glass cleaner can be used, I would be curious to try this.