Anon's Guide to buffing scratches from a crt.

I just buffed out a scratch on my Panasonic BT-1390YN. You can imagine the horror when I got home with my first professional video monitor CRT, only to find that it had a scratch causing an annoying "rainbow" effect. Lucky for me, the Panasonic monitors did not have an anti-reflective coating, meaning I could buff the glass directly.

You'll want a Dremel (or similar rotary tool) and a handful of felt polishing wheels. You'll also want to buy some cerium oxide powder, which you can get fairly cheap online.

Soak some felt polishing wheels in water while you mix a paste of cerium oxide and distilled water. Fix the polishing wheel on your Dremel, smear some paste on the scratch, and buff at a low to medium speed.

Be sure to wipe off the screen and apply more paste when it starts to dry up, to avoid heat build up. It's going to take a while. I went through about 2 ounces of cerium oxide powder and a half dozen polishing wheels before I was satisfied with the results. At this point the scratch is only noticeable on a white background with my face practically pressed against the screen. I'm super happy with the results, I can't even spot the scratch at viewing distance.

Now a few words of warning. First, if the scratch is too deep, or you have chips or cracks in the glass, don't fuck with it. Vacuum tube + abrasive + heat +vibration = glass shards flying in your face at high speeds. Be careful. Also, you're going to make a huge mess and there's going to be cerium oxide dust all over. Taping off vents and speaker holes before buffing is a good idea.

I had tried lots of other methods of buffing or filling in the scratch before I did this, and nothing really worked or looked very good. I was able to save an absolutely beautiful monitor.