I’d use good quality spray on auto detailer like they use on show cars. Non-abrasive, serves to lubricate any dust particles to prevent further scratching, and leaves a very light polish.
Well, it turned out that I found a qualified craftman to take care of my little babies. The guy is an expert who build exotic veneered furnitures for private jets and luxury boats, and he happens to live just a few kilometers from my place. He specializes in applying lacquers and specific coating to furnitures and decks on boats.
So he quoted 400 euros (instead of 550 initially) for applying erasing the swirls and applying several coats of furniture grade lacquer (based on a specific polyurethane coating) to protect the speakers and look them as new again (not that the light hairlines and swirls were very deep, but as I said, I wanted to keep the PM1 in pristine condition as I intend to keep them for a very long time)
Well, that was a week ago and I’m supposed to get the speakers back this afternoon.
In the meantime B&W French branch to whom I submitted many question about how to get rid of the light scratches on the speakers’ cabinet was very helpful and responded.
So I’m sharing the information they gave me and that might be helpful for others here in the same situation.
It appears that Bowers & Wilkins has very well established procedures at the factory and after sales department to treat lightly scratched cabinets, and they provided me with both references of the products they use and way to apply them, including figures and drawings on what seems to be an official “swirls and scratches removal procedure for gloss black cabinets”
They used the following items from 3M (which are relatively expensive actually, around 160€ to 180€)
3M Ultrafina Swirl Remover
Good quality Microfibre Polishing Cloth
3M Finesse-it 50016 pads
I prefered to play it safe, knowing that the above products may be really efficient but of non use if applied wrongly and so I gave the speakers to the aforementioned craftsman. He did confirm that B&W advised items are the right ones for the job but he personally will apply some wood-specific product with a machine. He also confirmed that applying the product by hand is not efficient enough to get rid of all the scratches and since I don’t have the craftsman’s skills I prefered him to do the job hoping the results will be better.
Cant wait to see the results, will post pics once I get the PM1s back tonight
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Bouba
Thanks for passing on the information re B+W. I suspect I would want to try it out on a damaged speaker ready for the bin to ensure I wouldn’t wreck them! But good to know what is recommended by the manufacturer.
Peter
I have Dynaudio Confidence C2 Platinum in Piano Black finish. They’re beautiful. have a nice lambs wool duster I use to wipe dust off. Otherwise I only use the micro-fiber towel that came with the speakers.
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I just invest in a proper lambswool duster, hoping it’ll not scratch my finish
well, I just get my PM1s back from the workshop. Looking stunning and new again. I can’t believe my eyes. Don’t know exactly how did he do that, he wasn’t very keen in providing me with details, but all the little swirls and hairlines are gone now, leaving the flancs with a deep a mirror-like shine again.
Same thing for the PM1s original stands (those had within more scratches than the speakers themselves)
The craftsman told me that : he first heated the lacquer to make it more supple and ease the “sanding” process using an abrasive paper to take off the primary lacquer, polished it and apply a new clear coating.
I paid 400 euros for the job and must say I’m very pleased with the results.
The only caveats I can think of now are the following :
- He was able to polish the posts of the stands and make them look like new again but couldn’t apply a new lacquer coating to the black bases of the stands themselves because he didn’t know what kind of lacquer B&W used, He even told me that trying to polish them would have made more damages than good. But he kind of cleaned them up with a finishing very thin polish
-He also told me that he doesn’t know of any chemical or item that could clean up without damages the gum-like material that covers the front, rear and underside of the speakers. this material scratches quite easily and he advised simply using a soft detergent (like the regular ones we all use to wash dishes at home) to clean them, which I did and even though not perfectly new, that restores the soft touch feeling of that material. I must say this material looks stunning and matches beautifully the speakers dark mocha gloss but is a nightmare to keep clean, a real magnet for dust, being mate black.
Anyway really happy that I could get the PM1s back to their full glory, or almost.
One last thing: he did give me some disposable towels to clean up the speakers that are specially made for fragile surfaces. Seemed funny to me because this aint no microfiber nor a soft cloth, rather looks like toilet paper and very thinly woven, but it worked a breeze. No scracth, very soft material and comes in a small box with 250 pieces in it.
It’s mainly used for cleaning car exterior without causing scratches or damaging the surfaces.
I was very skeptical but it’s really surprising how well it works. It’s manufactured by Dupont and the name of the cloth is Sontara. Very hard to find though and I realized its solely proposed in large quantities for automotive professionals, but it’s definitely better than any other cloths I used, even the one that comes with the speakers.
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