Water Spots On Glass

[Alfisti]

Re: Water Spots On Glass

I'm not sure that waterspots can etch glass. They can etch paint though.

It would need something frightening, like hydrofluoric acid, to chemically etch glass.

Waterspots are a mineral buildup that can be removed with abrasives, chemical cleaners, or as Maz mentioned, diluted acid that dissolve the minerals.

[Maz]

Re: Water Spots On Glass

Water spots on glass is actually a chemical etching process.

Using abrasives is not the smartest way to remove them, the smart way is with a chemical that reverses the etching process.

Acid is the key. Some people use vinegar but it is not very strong at all.

The best is hydrochloric acid. Nasty stuff but diluted heavily its pretty safe to use. No worse than Wheel brightener for example. Apply some to a applicator pad and the etching will literally wipe away with the lightest pressure with a single pass. As your pretty accurate with the applicator pad you dont even have to worry about taping the window rubbers. You apply so little that it doesn't run and evaporates off the windows. You then wash the car as normal.

30 minutes taping and buffing windows turned into a 2 minute job.

Magic stuff. I have a small bottle heavy diluted that i use for emergency.

[Jeepster04]

Re: Water Spots On Glass

I removed the water spots on my Jeeps windows by using #83 on a cutting pad with the PC.

[mirrorfinishman]

Re: Water Spots On Glass

Don't overlook the power of an item called Bar Keepers Friend. Here in NJ it can easily be found in the cleaning supply isle of most supermarkets. Using a 3M Polishing Pad from the local boat supply store, along with a paste of water and Bar Keepers Friend, that will usually polish out by hand most water spots on glass. It is simple to do, with relative no mess.

[ozSS]

Re: Water Spots On Glass

yeah i know but just in case people feel compelled to do the inside as well. plus some cars are tinted on both sides.

[mike_svt]

Re: Water Spots On Glass

Typically windows are tinted on the inside and water spots are on the outside

[ozSS]

Re: Water Spots On Glass

bear in mind that ammonia is the no.1 enemy of window tint!

[Alfisti]

Re: Water Spots On Glass

I've had 100% success w/ a product called 1 Grand Glass Cleaner. It's a pumice and ammonia-based cleaner that can be applied by hand.

Funny you should say that.

When I first got my Alfa I had to remove really bad water-spotting off the windscreens. Tried everything from paint polish to glass polish. Nothing worked very well.

Then I had an idea. I had a can of metal/brass polish similar to the older Brasso formula. Pumice and ammonia as its main ingredients. Worked a treat! Applied it with terry cloth and elbow grease and removed the water-spotting.

[mike_svt]

Re: Water Spots On Glass

I've had 100% success w/ a product called 1 Grand Glass Cleaner. It's a pumice and ammonia-based cleaner that can be applied by hand. I used it to go from this:



To this:



all done by hand w/ a foam applicator.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Water Spots On Glass

Mike do you think the method you mention could take some scratches from glass?

No.

Won't work for to physically abrade the glass and level it at all. Topical defects yes, remove a below surface defect, no.

[29bowtie]

Re: Water Spots On Glass

Thanks everyone, this car came from central Washington(desert country),the only waterspots i've seen that were worse,were on paint, on our race boat while racing at Firebird Raceway in Phoenix. Mike,i know of the frustration of trying to clean up ,after painters who've buffed, without masking off trim,at the dealership bodyshop where i used to work.

[ozSS]

Re: Water Spots On Glass

i dont think its possible to remove scratches from glass, it is just too hard. using a heavy cut/abrasive polish you can remove bonded contaminants or on-surface etchings, but never anything that has cut in to the glass (catches your fingernail).

[Murr1525]

Re: Water Spots On Glass

Even a wool pad with a paint product should not scratch glass, unless it is low quality and something coarse was stuck in it.

A paint care product may remove build up, but will not remove scratches.

[yalerd]

Re: Water Spots On Glass

Mike do you think the method you mention could take some scratches from glass?

The scratches are nothing deep, when I took my car to the paint shop the "polished" all the glasses and I have like some scratches because my guess is that they used the wool pad.

Any suggestions on this?

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Water Spots On Glass

I need some advice, i've got a windshield with the worst water spots i've ever seen. Triple O steel wool won't even break through the deposits. Any ideas?

Don't use steel wool on glass, regardless of what people say, steel scratches glass and there are better alternatives.

You live in British Columbia, Canada and if you have any kind of rain like we had when we lived in Oregon, then you've got water spot problems on glass.

During all the years we detailed cars in Oregon and Washington, we always had to polish out the exterior glass because most of the daily drivers we detailed were exposed to repeated rain and thus the paint became water spotted and so did the glass.

Here's the deal...

As a Pro Detailer, (someone that's paid to do the job), you can't give back your customer their car with shiny paint but the glass is all spotty, so every time we buffed out a car we also buffed out the glass.

Because we mostly use the rotary buffer for our detail jobs, it was nothing to take the W-7006 foam cutting pad, (mostly because it was small, not because it was foam), or a wool cutting pad and used some M0416 Heavy Cut Cleaner to polish the glass and remove the water spots.

This worked pretty good most of the time, of course we would tape off the rubber trim around the glass so we didn't creme it over with product which would cause us to spend time wiping the outside areas of the windows down to clean them. We're a big fan of taping off versus fighting to remove splatter or excess product.

You can also use M0416 Heavy Cut Cleaner by hand using a piece of terry cloth only if you go this route you'll need to put a little passion behind the terry cloth, read as Elbow Grease, and it will do the job safely.

In most cases you'll have to go to a PBE store to find or order M0416 Heavy Cut Cleaner, or order it online.

Be sure to always shake the product well before using.

M0416

http://www.meguiars.com/?pro-paint-cleaners-compounds/Heavy-Cut-Cleaner

How to tape-off a car

See the taped-off areas around the windows? That's because we buffed the glass as a part of this Extreme Makeover