remove cigarette burn from uPVC

[Mungo]

Whilst I was off on holiday my eighteen-year-old son's friend decided to nip outside the conservatory for a quick smoke. Having lit up (I'm making this bit up), he was then called inside so he carefully laid his lit cigarette on my 5-month-old conservatory cill, burning end overhanging the end of the cill (in free air). You can probably see where this is going...

Yes, the interval between laying down the ciggie and returning was longer than the burn-in-free-air time, hence I now have a scorch mark to remove.

Blurry picture available at:

I am able to forgive an accident, I've yet to hear a spoken apology from the culprit which may be judged as how trivial this damage is in the culprit's eyes. Or the culprit could be running scared of my wrath. After I fix the damage I'd be willing to forgive if the culprit promised not to smoke anywhere within my property: once bitten, twice shy etc. I'm relaxed about young adults experimenting (within reason) with alcohol; if they are stupid enough to smoke then I am powerless to stop them; the combination of a fuelled-up kid and incendiary devices scares me even after hearing their inexperienced bleatings of "it will never happen".

So, having got that vehemence off my chest, anyone out there fixed such a scorch-mark problem before, and if so how did you go about it? I thought it best to ask before making an attempt on the uPVC.

Thanks in advance

Mungo

[Mary Fisher]

Kill him.

I'll do it for you if you prefer.

Mary

[Frank Erskine]

The ciggies are already doing that...

[Stuart Noble]

Most installers screw the cill to the window frame from underneath so replacing it isn't really an option. I suppose there must be epoxy or polyester repair kits for pvc? Maybe just paint it and put it down to experience. Vow never to have anything to do with young adults ever again.

[.]

damn your nimble fingers :-)

to mungo: with a fine file and a very sharp chisel you may be able to cut the offending burn out and inlay with a suitably sided and shaped bit of upvc scrounged from a window maker ? don't know how well you'd be able to blend it in to ? just a guess, obviously.

[Steve Firth]

Never had to do it because I hate uPVC, but I have seen burned uPVC in the local pub and it strikes me that cigarettes burn deep into the plastic. It may be very hard to remove the damage.

Personally I'd try using cutting compound to polish it away but you may end up taking off "quite a bit" of the surface.

[Round Square]

They claim to be able to repair all kinds of plastics so maybe able to help with upvc.

[Mary Fisher]

Not quickly enough though. More painfully ...

Mary

[MikeH]

Horses and stable doors, etc....

...but whatever led you to believe you can leave 18 year olds unsupervised? They're just big noisy toddlers really. Best to keep an eye on 'em. ;-)

Mike

[Mary Fisher]

To be fair, it's not just 18 year olds. It's smokers of any age.

Mary

[Adebisi]

Are you sure it was not your own son smoking and not only that but smoking dope or crack cocaine?

You have to be careful as my wife had found evidence of this before and when challenged our son said the same thing after we had video evidence of him smoking crack cocaine. We had him arrested and taken into juvenile detention for 6 years until he was realised at age of 16.

[Ziggur]

You could clean the damaged area, fill it, and paint it.

Try this

[Andy Dingley]

Friend of mine was round at another friend's place, plasma-cutting some steel sheet. Not happy with the many workbenches on offer, he did it outside on a PVC garden table.

It was the usual Workmate / circular saw trick. where you start the cut well clear of the bench and somehow end up deep inside the worktop. This one was a 3' long scorch mark right across the top of the table. You can't plasma cut PVC, but you can't half discolour it.

We could smell it _inside_ the house before he even noticed.

[Guy King]

The message from Andy Dingley contains these words:

I find with welding that the level of concentration focussed on such a small spot excludes just about anything. Like a friend's puppy widdling on my leg, for example.

[Mary Fisher]

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!

Don't need to read any further :-)

[Mary Fisher]

Another candidate for killing.

Kids and dogs. who'd have 'em!

Mary

[Helen Deborah Vecht]

Guy King typed

Are you still wearing the same sandals, withour socks? EMWTK

[Mike]

Mungo,

I asked about repairing upvc before and someone suggested that you could get brilliant white fibreglass filler from a ship's chandlers or possibly from a motor factors. I never did track any down because we were about to move anyway --- but I've just discovered that the upvc door at th new place has a prang in it, so I'll be looking again.

HTH,

Mike

[Mary Fisher]

If the puppy widdled on his drainpipes it might have drained through his hose to his pump ...

Mary

[Guy King]

The message from Helen Deborah Vecht contains these words:

I've learned not to weld wearing sandals - though I did the other day 'cos it was on the far side of a sheet of metal I was leaning over, so the sparks all went the other way.

Worst was welding underneath a minibus and getting a spatter in the earhole. I could hear it crackling as it burnt my earhairs. I subsequently wore earmuffs for welding overhead.