Originally Posted by
Caledonian
jeweller's rouge will do a pretty good job of polishing plastic, but the slow speed is a good idea, and if you can't run your equipment as slow as you would like, very light pressure is indicated. It needn't be desperately slow. In the days when Black and Decker drills had a rather good mechanical gearbox, the slow speed of about 500rpm was fine.
You can do the calculations and find that the small polishing mops sold with Dremel tools give much the same peripheral speed as a larger, slower mop. But this is not the whole story. The Dremel mop or pad spends much less time out of contact with the workpiece, and therefore loses a lot less of the heat it gains. It is difficult to do good polishing of flat plastic with one of these.
I believe, though it doesn't apply with all plastics, that acrylic can be dyed with the dyes available for fabrics. They are available in a version intended to be simmered in water, or another that can be done in a washing machine. A slightly discoloured white shirt or two to do at the same time would make it worthwhile.