From inSync reader Rodrigo F, a television sound mixer from Valparaiso, Chile, comes the following tip:
"A suggestion on how to recover a CD with some or a lot of scratches (if they are not too deep): I use a very old product with a soft clean cloth. The product is currently available in my country, and it’s called "Brasso." It is designed for cleaning and shining metals. It is an excellent and soft polisher.
I work currently with CDs at a TV Station where sometimes accidents happen like dropping them to the floor, etc., and I had tried some normal CD cleaners without good results. Then I thought about using something stronger – the covers of the discs are plastic, maybe with a good polishing I could take out the problems. Using Brasso, I have recovered a lot of CDs, even some very old ones with a lot of scratches that were not able to play. I’ve been using this product successfully since 1989."
Thanks for the tip Rodrigo! Keep in mind that when cleaning or polishing discs, to work from the center out straight out to the edge of the disc, or vice versa. Don’t polish "around" the disc in radial fashion. CDs have far more difficulty error correcting for scratches and damage that run around the disc (along with the data tracks) than across them.