If you have an acrylic dome port and scratch it, don't despair, there is hope! I was shooting photos in an underwater cave two weeks ago, when, to my horror, my 'model' ran into my dome port with his double tanks. Stuff happens, right? The impact left some nice scratches, which showed up in all subsequent images. I did a little interweb research and settled on the Micro Mesh NC-78-1 kit to remove the scratches. I thought I'd share my experience here.
Here's the blemish as it appeared in images (look upper left quad, looks like out of focus bubbles). This is not the diver who scratched my port.
Here's the blemish on the dome:
The Micro Mesh NC-78-1 kit. One thing that was not included, was the 400 weight sandpaper. Fortuantely, I had some on hand in the garage.
First, I removed the dome port guard, which is held in place with screws (I have a Sea and Sea dome port).
Next, I used 400 grit wet/dry (using it wet), to remove the scratch. I sanded the entire dome, so that the surface would be even. Looked pretty bad after that step. Any scratches should be removed during this process. The 400 took care of business! I have to say it was hard to do this to my dome port and was hoping the process would work.
After using the 400 weight, I began using the Micro Mesh strips, starting with 1500 and working my way down to 12000. Using the foam block in the kit, I sanded the dome edge to edge, crossing my pattern 90 degrees. After completing sanding, I rinsed and washed the dome to remove any abrasive residue.
This is the finished product. I spent about four hours on this. Maybe a bit over the top, but I wanted to ensure it turned out right.
By the way, the kit was around $45 + shipping direct from Micro Mesh. The kit is resuable as long as the micro mesh sheets have enough abrasive left over, and mine do. Hope I don't need them again :-)
Safe diving and happy shooting!
