Repairing Severely Scratched CDs

[JimBowie1958]

Well I have looked over sites like these:

How to Fix a Scratched CD (with pictures) - wikiHow

Fix a Scratched CD - Wired How-To Wiki

Quickly Remove Scratches From CDs and DVDs | Wise Bread

The above, including brasso, didnt seem to help with a few badly scratched CDs I have.

So I got an idea from a leather strop making method I found on Utube.

I glued a leather strap on to a flat block of wood, with the rough side facing out and let it dry.

Then I put plain old auto rubbing compound on the cd and rubbed the cd with the rough side of the leather strip, doing circles. Then washed it off and rubbed it dry with a paper towel and the improvement was remarkable. I have listened to about 6 songs without a single scratch, and two are still unplayable. The last one locked up my playing app and so I will polish the cd some more with more rubbing compound later after I get home from work. After another attempt to rub out the scratches, I will record the remaining songs on my PC and burn copies to protect the originals.

But I was wondering if anyone else has done anything like this and had any tips to share.

And yes, I will try to take better care of my CDs.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Be sure to clean all the rubbing compound off the cd. I dont know what would happen if any of that got into the moving parts of your cd player, but it cant be a good thing.

 

[g5000]

CDs. I remember those.