Polishing car glass from scratches

The main frontal protection of the driver from external negative factors is the windshield. At the same time, it provides the best possible overview of the road situation. Accordingly, two special functions are assigned to this car detail: to be transparent and to be durable. Not all modern materials are able to meet these criteria, so cracks or chips appear on the surface after a certain period of operation.

Drivers are often interested in the question of whether it is possible to polish the windshield of a car without help. It is quite expensive to carry out these works in a specialized workshop, and a considerable amount is also needed to complete the replacement of the triplex.

Car glass was not polished from scratches earlier, because quite rare tools and materials were required for the operation. Also, not everyone wanted to spend money on such little things as small scratches, leaving the main transparent part of the car is not in the best condition.

Content

  • 1 Possible damage
  • 2 Phased processing
  • 3 Important Toolkit
  • 4 Useful tips

Possible damage

Detected damage to the glass may have a different nature. They accumulate during the whole time of exposure to various aggressive media. Wear, after which you need high-quality polishing of the windshield from scratches with your own hands, comes in such cases as:

  1. Insufficient attention to the tidiness of the machine. Clouding of transparency and microscratches appear from careless care. When the glass is polluted, the driver grabs any item and scrapes dry dirt or rubs it with a barely wet cloth made of hard fabric. Several such operations lead to the fact that dry dirt acts as an abrasive, causing small grooves over the entire surface.
  2. High-speed trips around the track. This factor is least eliminated, as when driving on the road at high speed towards the car flying particles of sand, small pebbles or other hard debris. With a stress on the glass surface, a micro-chip is created. Over time, the amount of damage increases, and they also become clogged with dust and dirt, reducing visibility.
  3. Divorces from the janitors. Low-quality car wipers are also soon forced to look for a way to polish the windshield from scratches. Hard rubber rubs radius pattern, covering the review or creating glare. The latter may even be the cause of accidents at night from oncoming headlights or during the day from too bright sun.

In each case, use its own methodology. It depends on the type of surface damage. It is customary to distinguish several types of scratches according to the depth of impact or the need to process:

  1. Minor multiple damage. Such defects are not immediately noticed, but are detected on a sunny day. Glare from them distract from driving. They manifest themselves often with improper care, for example, breaking ice with hard objects. You will need to use a scratch glass polish with abrasive particles. The “polishing” operation is necessary only if it is necessary to remove a minimal layer with damages that does not exceed 1 micron.
  2. Medium scratches. They are not only visually noticeable, but can be felt by swiping the glass on the glass in the right place. He will cling to the grooves. To remove the layer using fine-grained sandpaper, and then carried out polishing.
  3. Deep grooves. These deformations are detected by visual inspection of the glass. Here you will need a special tool for polishing glass and colorless photopolymer compositions for their introduction into deep grooves. You will also need a paste with a coarse abrasive. We will have to work manually at the initial stage, and at the final stages mechanized grinding with a fine-grained abrasive is carried out.

It should be noted that windshield polishing involves removing a larger layer, up to 200 microns, than polishing, which removes several microns.

how to polish the windshield do it yourself

Most often, such operations involve expensive glass, while companies are in demand, such as Doctor Wax, 3M, Holts or Sonax, Turtle Wax. Installing their new models is quite expensive.

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Phased processing

Before polishing the windshield with your own hands, a video of examples of work will be presented below, it is necessary to examine the surface for the presence of large problem chips. They will not allow for high-quality processing and when heated while grinding or polishing the glass will simply crack in this place. Make such places can only in the workshop.

At the preparatory stage, the motorist should mark the areas to be processed with a marker. Not all glass can be machined so as not to increase the complexity of the operation. After identifying the front of the work is carried out preparation of the tool.

As consumables used polishes in the form of powder, which must be diluted or liquid billet. Carefully read the instructions for use.

Before starting to work with the surface, it must be thoroughly washed. Next, wipe everything with a soft cloth, removing all kinds of sand or dust particles. Subsequently, they can create a negative result. For a positive result, it is recommended to adhere to the following plan:

  1. The glass is being cleaned and the body is protected. Open metal surfaces must be carefully covered with plastic wrap or tape.
  2. A layer of chemical is applied to the surface to be treated. The larger the grain of the paste, the larger layer it will remove, and the larger it will be for the larger grooves.
  3. Finishing operation is a car wash from all kinds of compositions.

Wash should be arranged immediately after grinding, so that the abrasive particles do not have time to lock onto unwanted surfaces.

Important toolkit

At the initial stage, the car owner is faced with the question of how to polish the glass. For the process it is necessary to prepare the following arsenal:

  • polishing machine;
  • a set of polishing wheels;
  • special paste, such as GOI paste;
  • plastic film to cover the surrounding surface;
  • masking tape;
  • for marking the desired area using a lightweight black marker or marker;
  • mechanical hand sprayer;
  • household cleaner for mirrors and glasses;
  • personal protective equipment.
See also: How to remove stickers from the car

It is important to use a polisher with optimal parameters. These include:

  • allowable tool diameter;
  • working turns;
  • power apparatus.

Important! An excessively large value of the speed of rotation of the machine can lead to overheating of the glass and to further instantaneous irreversible deformation or complete destruction.

In the building stores a variety of different models. Allowed the use of angular machines with adjustable turns. You can also attach to the drill adapter with a polishing wheel. 1500 rpm is considered to be the optimal value for this operation.

The use of GOI fine fraction paste will make it possible to remove the lowest possible layer. Larger abrasives are designed for coarse grinding.

During the work it is necessary to use protective equipment for breathing in the form of a petal or respirator. Small particles scatter in all directions and can penetrate into the lungs, subsequently creating problems. You also need to protect your eyes, wearing building glasses.

In the room where the treatment is carried out, quality light should be installed and there should be no dust inside. If it gets under the polishing wheel, it may cause new scratches.

Useful tips

It is not necessary to rub the machine intensively in one place for a long time, as this will lead to the appearance of a visible negative effect. You need to work smoothly and without much effort.

It is forbidden to use ordinary tooth powder or paste for polishing. Some craftsmen use them very successfully in the processing of plastic surfaces of headlights from the inside or from the outside. For glass, this option will be inappropriate.

Pre-rubbed manually pasta to work with a machine or a drill with a felt nozzle. The result should be a pasty mass. Part of the paste is applied in advance on the circular nozzle. The whole manual rubbing operation lasts no more than 1.5-2 minutes. As a result, the roughness should disappear.

To flush it is necessary to use a large amount of water. We wipe the glass to a dry gloss, and only then remove the masking tape.

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