As the title says why does toothpaste fix disks
In: 2049
Toothpaste, among other things, is abrasive. Not by much, but just enough to help dislodge dirt, Polish and smooth a surface.
Disks store their info below the plastic layer that tends to get scratched over time. That plastic is just there to protect what’s beneath while still enabling the laser to pass through and read the data.
You can use the toothpaste on the disks in the same way you would use very fine grade sandpaper during the polishing process for metal — you dislodge stubborn crap, smooth out the surface imperfections, leave yourself with a smooth finished surface again. You just use it in moderation and gently as you’re only levelling and smoothing those scratches with the rest of the surface, not trying to fully grind away at that plastic outer layer.
Obviously though you can get scratches that are deep enough that they actually are through the data layer though… that’s when the disk is dead dead… unless you’ve got some special Nintendo coding toothpaste to replace those missing zeros and ones like for like on your scratched up Mario Sunshine GameCube Disk.
A fun fact for anyone interested though, toothpaste also works very well for clearing up the ‘Haze’ on aged vehicle lights. Far cheaper than fancy dedicated cleaning stuff and does the same job because they’re much the same product at the end of the day, just one has more ingredients catered towards human oral hygiene. There’s more than a few tutorials online to follow for cleaning them this way. Speaking from experience though, just be aware that ideally you’d be wanting to give the car a full clean afterwards… unless of course you potentially want dried toothpaste streaks down your bumper etc.
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