Removing Scratches from Glass By Hand

[azhunderek]

Hey Everyone,
So I have a friend who's windshield has a bunch of small scratches from her wipers. I know that there are ways to take it out with a rotary buffer from other posts, as well as there are ways to polish but is there anything Meguiars sells that will help in removing these scratches by hand (it looks like a bunch of dirt was on the windshield and someone used the wipers to try to clean it...)?
Thanks for your help!

[greg0303]

Re: Removing Scratches from Glass By Hand

Think about glass as 10 times harder than car paint. If the scratches are deep even a rotary buffer with glass cutting disc won't be able to even them enough so they disappear (watch out the heat build up with rotary as it can permanently reshape glass).

I used Diamondite Kit couple weeks ago and removed wiper scratches but the deep ones were still visible (rotary at 1,000 rpm).

http://www.autogeek.net/diglclsy.html

[azhunderek]

Re: Removing Scratches from Glass By Hand

Hi Greg,
I forgot to put that the scratches are very light...you can see them but I can't feel them while running my fingernail over it.
With that being said, It sounds like getting them out by hand may not be the best idea. That kit looks like it will work well for what I need.
Thanks for your help!

[new2detailing]

Re: Removing Scratches from Glass By Hand

@azhunderek: I have had experience with scratches in the windshields of my older cars. Like "greg0303"glass is much harder to remove scratches than a painted panel. You will need a rotory to remove windshield scratches and a dedicated glass polish. Even with that, the windshield needs to be wet to keep it from heating up quickly and affecting the clarity of the windshield. For deeper scratches, cerium oxide is used. There are several companies that make glass specific polishes/kits for this purpose.