Claying my glass tomorow... any advice

S

Spice&Wood83

New member
Gonna do a pretty thourough detail these next couple days.

I have several clay bars I want to try on my glass.
Never clayed glass before.
Meguairs clay bar, Chemical guys "hard" and 3M perfect-it ( from Japan ).

How should I go about claying my windshield?

Clay it while im washing i with my shampoo / car soap?
Clay with glass cleaner, a degreasing agent ( I usually use dish soap / water to clean windows ) or should I use my Chem. Guys clay luber?
Should I purchased some razor blades?
 
Spice&Wood83 said:
Gonna do a pretty thourough detail these next couple days.

I have several clay bars I want to try on my glass.
Never clayed glass before.
Meguairs clay bar, Chemical guys "hard" and 3M perfect-it ( from Japan ).

How should I go about claying my windshield?

Clay it while im washing i with my shampoo / car soap?
Clay with glass cleaner, a degreasing agent ( I usually use dish soap / water to clean windows ) or should I use my Chem. Guys clay luber?
Should I purchased some razor blades?
Click to expand...

*Wear some good Nitrile gloves so the claybar does not stick to your skin and pull all the oils out of it..
* You should be able to Claybar the glass with the car wash soap.. However, some cheap claybars will break up in some car wash soaps.. None will break apart in claybar lube..

* Unless you are removing something like paint, etc., you should never need a steel razor blade.. There are Plastic razor blades that will always be safer to use and not harm glass like a steel one does if the edge digs into the glass..

*Be careful to not accidentally rub the claybar on any rubber, plastic, painted, window trim that is right next to the glass.. It can change the finish of some of those things..
* The Claybar is supposed to shear off stuff stuck to a surface. I have seen pretty good results with it..
Dan F
 
Claying glass is pretty easy and quick. If you`re claying the paint you`re being lazy not doing the glass (unless you`re avoiding removing a glass coating). You don`t have to worry about scratching the paint. I use the Clay Magic pink glass clay bars. I can`t remember which store I got a bunch of them from (AZ?). They are harder than normal clay and seem to do a better job on water spot minerals. Otherwise, I just use the same clay bar that I used on the paint to do the windows
 
If you have time, Larry from AMMO has a 16 minute video on this. I watched it years ago and was blown away at how meticulous he is. I know we can`t link here but YouTube this.

Car Glass: Cleaning & polishing -- /DRIVE CLEAN
 
I saw that video.
The polisher is the ne thing I don`t have. But if I ever get one I`m def. going to try it out.

quebert said:
If you have time, Larry from AMMO has a 16 minute video on this. I watched it years ago and was blown away at how meticulous he is. I know we can`t link here but YouTube this.

Car Glass: Cleaning & polishing -- /DRIVE CLEAN
Click to expand...
 
Well I did it last night after work.

Washed the windows with car wash.
Washed the windows again with my own concution. ( 50% distilled water + 50% dish soap + drop of rubbing alcohol ).
Then wet the windows with a mistof water and my window wash mix ( above ).
Clayed away.

It was hard to def. of there was any improvement as it was getting dark. But just from pulling into the garage it looked like it made a huge difference.

**** I used 3M perfect-it ( Japan ) clay. ( $75!! ) - I chose this because of all the rave reviews and it`s professional quality.
I liked it.
But.... big but.... The more I used it it started to get very soft and break apart. Like wet clay. I`m guessing it only did this because of the alcohol in the mix. I only used a small piece.

I did wash this car this AM and clayed the entire car ( minus front per 3M pro clear bra ) with the same 3M clay and Chem. guys "clay luber" and had no issues with the clay breaking down. So it`s gonna be from the alcohol.

Gonna clay the inside of my windshield as well this weekend.
Wondering if this will make any improvement. Worth a shot.
 
Could you feel any improvement? You would mostly feel the change on the rear window or sunroof. Started with a slightly gritty, grabby feel then starts to feel more and more smooth after each pass with the clay.

***NOTE*** Meguiar`s Ultimate Compound is an excellent glass polish. Works quickly on water spots and wipes off very cleanly with no dusting. It is the first polish I will try. My next step up in aggressiveness would be M37 Glass Restorer Polish, and then the Carpro cerium oxide polish
 
You don`t have to use the entire chunk of clay at the same time. I break the 200gram clay bars I use into 6 pieces. One piece per car. Its a manageable size piece that is easy to knead.

How did the IPA get on the clay? Is it part of your clay lube?
 
Think it`s the hughe amount of dish soap that broke apart the clay. In the future if you want to have something easier is to get a clay block and Sonax Glass Cleaner or Blackfire Glass Cleaner which Mike Phillips on Autogeek used this method too. And use the glass cleaner as clay lube for extra cleaning ability from the clay block. The clay block is a synthetic clay that you can just rinse off what it`s picks up. This you can do on the paint too if you are going to be polishing afterwards. But on glass it`s just to clay away. Was a detailer named Renny Doyle I saw do this. And got interested and tried it myself and worked great on a really neglected paint. Then have used it on glass since then more often.

A clay block like this.

https://www.autopia-carcare.com/nanoskin-prep-sponge.html#.XUL6l6aew1I

If you clay the inside of the windows just make sure you don`t have any tinted windows there.
 
Just a quick note on steel razor blades. If you hit the corners with a stone or file and round them a bit, they will not dig in. It seems the edges are the main culprits for digging in. That and use one that is not brand new helps as well.
 
SWETM said:
If you clay the inside of the windows just make sure you don`t have any tinted windows there.
Click to expand...

And that any Defroster Elements are embedded *IN* the glass, not just adhered to...*on*...the glass under a thin plastic film (which the claying could compromise). Guess most all of `em are these days, but I thought it worth mentioning.
 
I`ve certainly clayed glass and I`ve polished with glass polish and Griot`s polisher multiple times. Polishing with glass polish and the machine has FAR more impact, FWIW.
 
I`m still leery (not to say "paranoid" ;) ) about using Glass Polishes, at least ones potent enough to really do something. Every now and then somebody posts about how it went sideways and left things worse than they started out.
 
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