Window Swirl/Scratch removal?

L

LandonZ

New member
One thing that kills me the most is to have huge scratches and swirl type scratches on windows!! IS there such a process to get them off?? I got all of my water spots off, now I see all the scratches! has anyone had any luck polishing windows??



Landon
 
thats a good one man . . . Can you even remove scratches from glass ? I would imagine you would need to wetsand or use a polish abrasive enough to actually cut glass . . good luck man, i wish I had an answer for that - the window in question must be thrashed!!!
 
cool. the window is question is not that bad of shape..But it looks like the previous owner ran the wipers without a blade on it.. which makes it so hard to see out off at night! Thanks sneek for the suggestion
 
Yeah I'd like to know too. I have another car of mine that has a bunch of scraches, it was my dads old car and he decided to clean some stubborn stuff off with a dish washing scrub. BTW does Autoglym work well with etched glass (with a pc that is)????



Chris
 
JC Whitney sells such a kit also. About 30 bucks if I remember but it'll last a lifetime.

It has a felt buffer and a chemical compound called cerium oxide. The cerium oxide is used in the optical/astronomical industry to polish lenses so it's perfect for windows etc.



you make up a slurry with small amounts of the cerium oxide and water then keep buffing the area with it using the felt buffer wheel/pad.



I've used it to remove rather severe wiper scratches on the wife's car and it worked better than I had ever dreamed it would. No optics were altered on the windshield either.



It wasn't a quick polish though, it took maybe 45 - 60 minutes of careful polishing, reapplying the slurry, cleaning and checking my work.



A slight caution, the cerium oxide is very mildly radioactive, sort of like the old watches that would glow in the dark, so you don't want to keep the extra cerium oxide in your front pocket for the rest of your life. Mine is in a a corner of the basement - my neighbour's basement.

-John C.
 
VWdriver said:
Finally somebody who has actually used one of these kits. How did it work on pitting? Do you have any tips for using it?
Click to expand...



The windshield wasn't really pitted, just scratched in a huge arc. The whole arc was removed so I would expect it'll work on minor pitting also. The scratches were quite bad.

As for tips, nothing really, apart from common sense. Mix up a runny paste, powder and water, then do a slow and continual buff with the wheel in an electric drill.

Stop every few minutes, clean the area with a paper towel to inspect your progress and repeat.

Make more slurry as needed, and I guess the best tip is just to be patient. It's a slow process but it does work.

-John C.
 
Has anyone ever tried to remove the etched anti theft numbers from glass? The dealer did a terrrible job with large blurred numbers I did not even want.
 
JohnZ3MC said:
A slight caution, the cerium oxide is very mildly radioactive, sort of like the old watches that would glow in the dark, so you don't want to keep the extra cerium oxide in your front pocket for the rest of your life. Mine is in a a corner of the basement - my neighbour's basement.

-John C.
Click to expand...

Cerium oxide is radioactive due to the trace amounts of thorium that are found in the cerium when it is mined. Typical cerium oxide powder has around 300microrem/hr (300/1000 of a millirem), the typical amount of radiation that you receive a year (from background sources such as Potassium 40 which is found in concrete) is around 300millirem. So to double your anual exposure would require you being exposed to this material for around 1000 hours. Keep in mind the anual radiation limit is 5 rems (5000 millirems or 5000000microrems). Though one thing to be careful of is inhalation of the dust, due to possible internal tissue damage from the radiation of the dust (think Radon but at much mower dosages). So I would recommend wearing a face mask when using this. Other than that, the radiation from this stuff is negligable, hence the reference to how the ovreall dose is less than what you receive during normal life.



Also, this should remove the ethcedd letters, it may just take a while as previous mentioned (an hour or more) but it will work.
 
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