Ideas
Repair Those Scratched CDs
By Staff Writer
May 12, 2007 - 8:11:55 PM

What can you do if you scratch your CD?  First you are probably asking yourself how the heck did I scratch it?  Sometimes it happened because you placed the CD on the seat next to you instead of storing it properly.... sometimes it just seems to happen.

So what can you do?  Well you can buy a new CD.  You could say oh well and toss it.  You could download it.  Or you could repair it.

Repair it?  What does that mean?  Until today I thought repairing it meant purchasing a $30 CD repair kit which consists of a machine that along with some repair solution somehow cleans your CDs and DVDs filling in the scratches.

Since I listen to a lot of books on CD which can easily cost more than $30, I thought this is a reasonable price to pay vs buying new CDs.  Still something bothered me about paying $30 or more for a repair kit.

After a little web searching, I whipped out the pledge, grabbed one of my favorite scratched CD's and blasted it with some pledge.  I guess I am supposed to use an eyeglass cloth, but instead I used a paper towel and buffed off the pledge.... generally wiping towards the center vs circular motions... I read this on a site somewhere.

Cool... I threw it into the CD player and so far so good... then the skipping started...  I pulled it out sprayed some more on... buffed it out and threw it back into the CD player... it made it a little farther this time... until it started skipping again...

Now an experienced CD repairer I sprayed a liberal amount of pledge on the CD ensuring I hit closer to the center since this is where it seemed to still be skipping... and buffed it out.

Let me tell you... my CD plays beautifully now... so three sprays of plede a three paper towels later I have a repaired CD.  I can't tell you if this will last as I only did this today, but I can tell you I am happy my CD is back and I still have the $30 in my pocket.

If you try this, you may want to experiment on a CD you are not in love with.  Also, remember you are spraying stuff so you may want to do this outside, away from food and you computer. pets, other people etc....  As for the cloth, I used a paper towel whcih may be a little rough, but it worked for me.  Call me lazy and impatient.

Good luck.