I know there's a bunch of articles on how to polish clear parts, but somehow I couldn't quite nail it yet. The polishing compound I bought in an autostore is great to remove paint from a screwed-up paintjob, but not fine enough to actually polish something clear. (I think. I didn't dare to get the stuff close to any canopy.)
The Dremel polishing compound I got from Home Depot is rock hard and I have no idea if it should be like this.
So: I have an assembled Mi-24 which needs to be repainted and the canopy repaired: back then I didn't have a regulator, so the compressor effectively forced the paint under the mask; I tried to remove it - ugly scratches. I"d like to polish it crystal clear and remask it (and this time I have a regulator, and bought Eduard mask -last time it took me a week with Parafilm...)
I have a Proxon, rock hard polishing powder, polishing disks -what do I do?

And if we're at it: how do you mask vacuformed canopies? The ridges are not very vell defined; would bare metal foil still work?

Thank you

There are several ways to polish clear parts, none too difficult, or expensive.
1. good old fashion tooth paste, not the gel type.
2. Novis Plastic Polish, normally # 1 and #2 will do a fine job.
3. Squadrons Triple Grit Polishing Stick.
4. Dipping in Future.

The main thing is to use light pressure, and support the inside, other wise you'll end up with stress fractures, and these are in the center of the clear part, and will never go away.

There's also Micro Mesh's various Kits/Sets. These are very good!

see: http://www.sisweb.com/micromesh/

In the auto section of your LHS, you should be able to find a set of polising pads, ultrafine sandpaper bonded to foam pads. The grit goes to 32000 and you should be able to use these to bring the canopy to better than new condition.

Oh ma' gosh. . . I'm surprised no one mentioned
Flitz. You live in Florida and it is an American product
you can get at some hobby stores and most hardware
stores. Flitz is a toothpaste consistency product that
you squeeze out of the tube and use as the final step

This stuff is great. So there is my 3 cents worth. . .
inflation you know. :-)

Thank you guys; I'm going shopping. (And thank you for answering a basic question that no doubt has been asked a million times before. Reading something and getting advice are two different things.
I"ll polish up the canopy this weekend (The helicopter has been sitting on my shelf for a year now. I just couldn't bring myself sitting down and start over the whole masking procedure especially with those scratches on the canopy... When ready, I'll post a photo -should look much better.)