Glass Restoration

I don't see much on this forum about glass restoration, so though I'd post up my experience to provide others with hope . . . or dismay, depending on your personality.

So we've all seen or spoken to someone who has used cerium oxide, likely in an Eastwood kit. I was warned by many that if I could catch my fingernail in any of the scratches I would never be able to remove it by polishing. Heck, even some scratches that you can't catch won't be removed.

Of course I wanted to salvage my original date coded glass and while the side glass was in pretty good shape, the front and rear glass was well beyond repair based on what I'd been told.

So after a bit of searching I found a place called "Glass Polish Shop" based out of Ireland. (http://www.glasspolishshop.com) I watched their videos, all of them, and was convinced I may be able to restore my glass if the product worked as well as advertised in the video. So I ordered the Glass Scratch Repair Starter Kit along with some extra pads and polish. Heck, if I could save my original for under $100 I was going to be thrilled.

Kit arrived and I started by tuning up my skill with the drivers door glass as it was the worst of the good glass. I had pretty good success but was disappointed in some of the imperfections after polishing. My disappointment wasn't from the ability to remove a scratch but from the almost undetectable ripple when you inspect the glass reflection at an angle almost parallel to the glass surface. But since the glass was clear, super polished, and no defect could be detected from almost all angles it was hard not to be happy.

I watched the video's again, e-mailed their support staff and asked tons of questions. They were exceptionally helpful and always answered back in a timely fashion. I was convinced (OK, I suspected, but wasn't sure) I could do better by grinding the entire surface of the glass more like they did in the coffee table video. So sink or swim I decided to take on the mother of scratched windows, my rear glass (Photo's attached)

I decided I would post up my experience, good or bad to help others since I turned up empty on the topic performing searches on MOPARTs in the past.

First thing I discovered was it's really hard to take photo's of scratches and defects in glass, even really bad glass like mine. So I decided to place blue tape everywhere I found a defect that needed to be removed, if you look closely there is tape on both the front and back of the glass and after starting this effort I quickly began to group my areas to try and show the magnitude of the damage. Additional pics show close ups of the areas by the tape. While only a few pictures you get the idea

I started by sanding the sharp edges to keep from cutting myself while working. This is easily accomplished using one of their diamond sanding blocks. Since they used a 220 grit block in the coffee table video I decided this was a good place to start. The sharp edges cleaned up very fast, taking a total of maybe 15 - 20 minutes.

Next up sanding. The kit comes with 3 grades of silicon carbide 4.5" pads, (red) 150, (Green) 100, and (Blue) 50. When I did the drivers window I learned that the green 100 would remove medium scratches locally but considering the amount and depth of the scratches on my glass, and knowing I was going to open the entire face I decided to start big with the (Red) 150. Shortly into sanding the dust fills the scratches and really magnifies what your going after. (see photos)

I made long passes working side to side and top to bottom. The depth of the scratches required me to order additional (Red) 150 pads, eventually burning through about 20 or so to get all the scratches removed. This was a solid 8 to 10 hour day, so don't think it's a fast process.

Once happy with the opening and removal of defects I performed the same task for several more hours with the (Green) 100 and the (Blue) 50 pads, probably added another 3-4 hours

The final stage of the process would be polishing the glass. This process is laborious, don't be fooled to think your finished in the short term as you may be by immediately noticing the glass clear within the first hour of polishing. However, upon closer inspection you will see very light rotary swirls and something that appears like glass thats not quite cleaned correctly, almost a smudgy look.

Unsure if this would ever be removed completely I contacted Conn (the gentlemen who had answered all my other questions, from the polish shop) and he assured me to continue polishing to restore the glass finish.

I continued for the next 2 days, each time becoming more happy with the results. Ultimately finishing the glass with results I am pleased with and certainly ones that 99.9% (maybe more) will be unable to detect anything was performed while looking through the almost perfect glass.

So heres a few pointers;
- Do not to this if you have been known to be all thumbs, heck, you better be pretty skilled if you want good results.
- Don't do this is you don't have good patience and drive
- Order extra pads, all of them, the Reds hold up pretty well, but the Greens and particularly the Blues burn up quick.
- Order extra polishing compound, you use a lot
- Sand dry
- Polish wet (to keep heat out), its also easier to keep heat down doing a large area
- Wear an apron, and don't do it near anything you can't clean up with water.

The real thrill here is YOU CAN SAVE THAT PIECE OF ORIGINAL DATED GLASS !!!

Special thanks to The Glass Polish Shop and Conn for sticking it out with me answering all my questions

Almost forgot to mention, doing the entire face yielded outstanding results, when following reflections on the glass there is no detectable distortion when viewing straight or almost any other angle. There is very, very small distortion when viewing almost parallel, so small in fact I highly doubt anyone will be able to notice even if you ask them to look for it. The key here may be to inspect your glass and note the distortion levels from the factory curves prior to starting so you don't imagine things as better or worse than your start point.

As I stated previously, this is not for those lacking in skill, determination, or patience. Best I remember I guess to have about 35 - 40 hours and about $100 in material to do this piece of glass. Perhaps the reason you may be hard pressed to find a shop willing to perform the task when you consider new glass cost would be a bargain when compared to labor rates to restore a piece. That said my remaining pieces combined won't equal the hours to do this piece.

Hopefully this thread will allow those with the ambition and skill set to consider saving there original glass.

Cool post. Thank you!

Your results are impressive and I was very happy to see how your rear glass turned out because mine is in similar condition.

But I doubt that I will dedicate a week to it.

thank you for sharing. Amazing results.

Thanks for posting! I may have to try that on some old glass I have laying around.

aar#2 that's great looking I always thought it could be done even though every glass guy was saying it couldn't be.

Thanks guys, I too thought there has to be an alternative to settling with glass imperfections or buying new glass that often doesn't fit or look correct.

If you're thinking of doing this I strongly encourage you to watch the videos available on The Glass Polish Shop web sight.

And to clarify about my time spent, I'm pretty cautious and took my time, didn't want to be too aggressive and botch something. If I were to do this piece today I may be able to shave my time down to a sporty 25 hours or so.

That's all I have ever heard as well. Nice job on your glass!

that is very impressive!
i just spent a bunch of hours cleaning up glass for 2 cars
and it took a good bit of time to just get the sealer and dirt and gunk off the glass to get it clean.
i am lucky as my glass is in a lot better shape to start
with only a couple of very light scratches by where the trim goes
its only on a couple of pieces and it might not even be noticeable
when installed
i was thinking about polishing them,
but i haven't even begun to research it yet
i guess i'm checking out the glass polish shop web site soon

Thanks for this post, I have been thinking about which way to go on this for a long time (no rush as rest of car is still in pieces) and did a lot of looking, including at commercial sites that fix store windows etc, but this is the first post I've seen which really answers the questions as to feasibility, cost, and effort!! Still not sure which route I'll go, but this helps a lot, thanks again and great job!

I'm really happy to see so many people are finding this post useful.

I wonder how many others have tried this and what results they got? Perhaps many giving up before achieving success.

Keep after it guys, it can be done!

This is a very interesting post. I had my project at a shop that used someone, I believe in MI, to do polishing. This person is an engineer who had developed a technique to polish glass that didn't leave dips or waves. He charged by the hour, $50 IIRC. When my car was in the shop, there was a B body there that the guy in MI had did the glass on. Everything but the windshield, which was too bad to restore, ended up costing $3000 to polish! But the polished glass on that car really looked outstanding. There was another B body at the shop at the time with repro glass and the glass looked crappy in comparison.
Despite the cost, I decided I really wanted my original glass polished. But everything with that ending up being (yet another) fiasco with my project. When he checked with the guy, he was really backed up, and with the other work on my project wrapping up, my restorer didn't want my car sitting around in his shop for 6+ months waiting for the polished glass to be returned. He found someone else who polishes glass and sounded promising in CA he wanted to try, so sent out my 1/4 glass to try them out and see how good they are. That guy then wouldn't return calls, so my restorer finally gave up after trying for several months to get a return call, told me to consider my 1/4 glass disappeared, and we ended up putting repro glass in my car.
The repro glass really doesn't look good at all and I am not happy with it, has a polarized look in certain lights, little scallops along the 1/4 glass edges, etc.
Then, 6 months later my 1/4 glass was returned "refused by sender". I wish I still had that CA shops name so I could list it as a place to avoid!
Like I said before, the whole glass issue with my car was a real fiasco!
My side glass is safe and sound stored at my house now, and I may want to try out your technique this winter to restore it, so I don't have to look at that mediocre restoration glass any longer.

THANKS for posting this. I've been wanting to polish my glass as well due to the word is repop glass is like you stated, not as good as original.

I thought Eastwood had a good glass polishing kit. Been too busy to call or check with them but thought someone used a kit by them.

Anyway, I might just give polishing my glass a try. Actually, it's in pretty good shape, I think. I'll look at the web site you provided and try a search too.

On a side note, does anyone know what to use to remove the butyl tape/sealer off of my front and rear glass ('71)

Heard about someone out here in so cal that called their process "grinding" glass. Was supposedly a specialized process they do to glass high rise buildings. Was interested in car hobby, but was too busy with industrial accounts to bother.

Sounded like they had machines or processes to cut the labor time down. Still IIRC, it was close to new glass costs.

Shop that had it done was very impressed that normally uses lots of resto glass.

I used razor blades lacquer thinner
And scrubby pads..

Thanks for taking the time to share. And nice job!!!!

I know it's new glass and you shouldn't have to mess with it, but would the "polarized look" polish out of the new glass?

As I understand it, the shading you see when wearing polarized glasses is the result of the tempering process. The process has changed over the years and while there was some shading with the old original glass it tends to be lesser and more in lines that the more uniform patches you see in modern glass. While not 100% certain, I would be absolutely shocked if you can do anything to remove that look from the glass. This was a factor in my decision to try and save my original pieces

No, it's something to do with the manufacturing process, or tempering, they do with glass now. You see it in certain lights in a lot of new cars too. Can't be polished out.
There was a thread on the subject here a couple months ago.

That's pretty much what I found out - if you look online there are outfits that restore storefront glass in situ (replacing a huge pane of that due to a scratch is a major expense). In theory this could be a good option, but I didn't take it further because a) I assumed that they wouldn't really be interested in auto glass and b) I imagine that if they broke it that would be on me, and I'd rather not take that risk without a better idea of their track record for this type of glass

Used kerosene back in the day.. A lot safer on the paint ( if in car) and your hands..

Thanks for posting. I think the real value is salvaging glass that is only available as used pieces. As to skill level, I got the impression that this is a lot like working with body filler. If you can successfully work with that, you can successfully do this. Sound about right?

Close, I'd say its like buffing out a car in the sense your using a rotary buffer, you need the same pressure, overlapping strokes, and good control/awareness as you sand.

But it is like body filler in the sense you ultimately want smooth transitions between sanded surfaces.

Except you don't have much of a chance of the "body filler" exploding like tempered glass will....

I am one of the glass guys who says this cannot be done..

Big reason is 3K or 40 hours for most people...

Glad to hear of a way to do it if someone wants to invest that kind of money or time in something that there is no guarantee it wont explode or be too far damaged to bring back....

I understand your skepticism, as I too thought this a near impossible task. My back window was pretty bad, lots of damage and a few pretty deep. Keeping heat out is a concern but was actually pretty easy by working a large section of glass, of course if you work a smaller section, a small mist bottle of water helps to keep things cool. Of course you can't lean heavy like your grinding on a steel table and expect to not have issues. Think finess rather than bull in a china shop

Did you watch the videos??

I did not mean to sound skeptical.. I think this is a great thread for someone who HAS TO have his orginal glass and there is the possibility of getting it clean..

My comments are just saying this is not an exact science with no guarantees after expending HUGE amounts of time and labor.

Your results are with tempered glass ( all of the glass in your car except the windshield). I can assure you the survivability ( the glass making it through without breaking ) of doing this on a WS goes down about 1000%..

No I did not watch the video.. I was in the industry for over 35 years and have spent many hundreds of hours trying to buff out scratches and imperfections on glass..

Minivan, thanks for the insight. While I haven't decided if I'll attempt to try and save the front glass or not, I do love a challenge and will post back if I decide to do it. Truthfully, I'm away from home for three weeks so it'll be a while before I'm back and can see if it's possible. Stone and star bursts may be the issue that could prevent that piece from being pursued. Considering your insight I'll pay special attention to keep heat out of the glass if I decide to get after it.

If you have the time and money why not try???

As you have said above the pits and any small chips will run pretty easily on a WS.... Good Luck....