Scintillators were polished in four steps using polishing paper, to reduce the optical loss occurring at their cross section when radiation detectors are fabricated with plastic scintillators. We studied the correlation between the polishing steps and detection efficiency and assessed the detection characteristics that are dependent in the polishing steps. Our results showed that the detection efficiency increased by approximately 7.75 times for a detector that used a scintillator polished in four steps, compared to a detector that used an depolished scintillator. For detectors fabricated using scintillators polished in different steps, better detection characteristics were obtained in terms of the activity, distance, and location of radiation, compared to detectors fabricated with an depolished scintillator.