Just briefly, i have factory blue glass all around in my 1994 Z.

The front screen is a Pilkington 'copy', replaced under insurance several years ago, it's lovely and it's matching blue.......happy days.

Both my door windows were scratched quite bad from when i purchased in 2009, so i replaced just these two with bronze but over time the mismatchiness gave me sleepless nights !!

So i re fit the blue a month back and now this thread will be my attempts at restoring them, never attempted this before i might add.

 

You can see below the scratches, felt with a finger nail so i knew these were classed as deep/bad, all done initially with window going up and down over 15+ years.

 

In my 'nothing to lose silliness' i even rubbed them by hand with 80 grit paper many many moons ago, made them appear worse than they are or were, this got the scratches 'back', well it would but wasn't the professional way forward and was slow hard work.

 

Towards the top left of the glass is where i have sanded, bottom left - yet to do. The towel is to hold the glass away so i can go right over at the top.

 

 

I admit doing them off the car would be ideal but there isn't a scratch really i cannot get to in situ and plus i can still use the car.

 

I bought some gp150 coarse for glass is this grit, 115mm velcro sanding sheets and used these on my drill attachment at around 2000rpm.

 

My L/H was not as bad as the R/H, this is completely done for now with this grade of paper.

 

I sanded right over the window guide peg, they want making less bulky anyway and i'll give these some tlc at a later date.

 

 

A view from inside and you can see i am left with cloudiness for now, it was my intention/plan to just try and improve but i have in fact done every little mark...god help me !!

 

Fyi the glass is 4mm thick, so what i am removing.........................0.2mm ?

 

 

Easier job than i thought really, just kept moving about the disc with just moderate pressure until each scratch disappeared before my eyes !!

 

I will update but i have some finer paper plus some other bits on order for the next stage but atm i am very happy with my progress, total spent up to now £9.00.

 

Look forward to seeing the final result - got some scratches on my driver side window recently from moss in the seals :(

Nice work Andy - and you have given me some inspiration....:wink:

Good job there bud:)

Subscribed. I may be able to revive my absurd collection of blue glass!

Nice work so far Andy... Hope it all polishes up ok so waiting for the next instalment!

Lol!-my next job before the the rebuild!

All down to crap on the door scraper mouldings....

Im not convinced lol, but look forward to see if this can be done, as many of us im sure have some scratches on the door windows.

 

Fingers crossed :punk:

The front screen is a Pilkington 'copy'

 

Just to add to that Pilkington are owned by Nippon Sheet Glass Co in Japan - so not to far from home.

Just to add to that Pilkington are owned by Nippon Sheet Glass Co in Japan - so not to far from home.

 

I could swear some piece of glass on my car has Pilkington engraved.

Im not convinced lol, but look forward to see if this can be done, as many of us im sure have some scratches on the door windows.

 

Fingers crossed :punk:

 

This!

 

I'm lucky that my door glass is virtually scratch-free - I'd never go anywhere near them with sand paper. Interested to see the results under different lighting.

Edited April 13, 20169 yr by Funkysi

Im sure there is a product for cleaning & removing scratches from glass?

Im sure there is a product for cleaning & removing scratches from glass?

 

 

There are a few and they rely on abrasive paper (wet'n'dry I'd guess, not sandpaper!), and a couple of grades of finishing compound. So the approach is perfectly valid, the result will like many things depend upon preparation, perseverance and patience.

Cerium oxide mix with water and polishing wheel to remove scratches

The papers available to me are 175, 150, 100 and 50, 50 being the finest, and yes the numbers seem to be the 'wrong' way round to what we're used to.

 

I used as stated the 150 and it was plenty coarse enough, i am now jumping when they arrive to the finer 50 sheets, it is possible i may have to go to 100 next but i'll give the 50 a go.

 

When sanding back glass i have read that 'using' the glass dust does no harm - so dry it is initially :cool3:.

I bought a glass scratch removing kit from this company:

 

http://www.glasspolishshop.com

 

Although I didn't use it on car glass, this "how to" video shows the process which would be similar to removing

scratches from car glass:

 

Yes Andrew that's the company i've been buying from, thought about one of their full kits but most of the stuff i had so i am just buying from them in 10 disc lots.

 

Not seen that particular video before but have seen similar ones with of course the same process/end result.

 

I am very confident i can achieve a perfect finish - just as long as i don't rub away all the blue tint, haha !!

I know people don't particularly read through so briefly i have tried to jump papers from the coarse 150 to the 50......it cannot be done i can report !!!

 

I have ordered the 100 grade.

 

The 150 has flattened out the deep scratches but as you'd expect it leaves scratches behind !! The 50 is too fine to get these out, fully expect the 100 will.

 

I also received today some polishing pads so i had a very quick go and i can see it coming back already on the right hand side of this pic, the haze top right is a bit on the inside i have not yet touched since the coarse grade.

 

Interesting read! i will be following later in the year if it works, as I am sure others will.

Since my update i bought the finest grade of paper for my disc, just to recap i started off with the 150 and this takes out everything, then down to 100, then 50 and then yesterday i spent time with my newly acquired 20 grade, very fine is this and it does feel like it is a pre polish paper.

 

Each paper as been needed i will again add - skipping is not an option.

 

I had something similar but i bought this item and highly recommend, it is top quality.

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/252203462159?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

 

Here it is attached to my drill with a tub of water at hand.

 

 

So on with the polishing, so using the paste i got with the kit although G3 or similar did seem similar and with water on the pad, i ended up making a mess !! If i was to do something different next time it would be to do this job with the glass out of the door, to enable corners/edges to be got better but to be fair there were no scratches in these areas anyway.

 

 

After going back and forth umpteen times i wiped off, i spotted some scratches i had missed so it was back through the papers locally though, polished again and then again.

I do have some scratches i need to go back to and i shall asap but the more you polish the better the finish, this is not a two minute job.

 

My glass was badly badly marked but with this being blue swb glass i had no choice but to do this process, it's not perfect but is way way better, yes i have some inevitable distortion but this is only visible in the unforgiving baking sun, bet if i pulled up no one would say or spot anything, when you consider i've not done anything like this before............i am well happy.

 

I shall photo again when i've totally finished.

 

You can see below on the blurred pic a lot of slopping and no doubt tiny glass fragments/dust in the cushioning so i removed for a damn good clean, i also sprayed down some WD40 so it flushed the glass out and ran into the door cavity.

 

 

Much better after being wiped in hot soapy water and lightly scrubbed with a nail brush, freshened up also with some black satin, certainly not wanting those scratches back :biggrin:.