Gang,
Anyone got a good process for restoring old safe-lite glass from the 60's? Looking for tips.

The websites & videos I've seen so far are fine for water spots that haven't been there long, but their processes don't seem to get me quite far enough with really old, sat outside-for-decades water-etched glass. For all I know the glass I'm working on has been in a few decades of acid rain.

I spent a bunch of hours over past few days using these products trying get a good clean surface on the exterior of some boneyard sourced front window glass.

Left to right from cleaners to abrasives

They're not quite doing it, but I fear scratching now-rare glasss pieces. The glass surface is smooth, but I can still see hard water spots or etching in the glass.

What I'm learning is that however hard getting good results in paint is, glass is harder still. Or maybe I'm impatient about the learning curve.

I'm using a good Makita polisher and varying the speed, taking care not to over heat the glass - RPM's between 1000 and 2000, generally.

It looks like the next step for me will be a cerium oxide paste. I thought I'd start with 3M premixed since their body shop professional stuff ususally gives me good results.

I'm not quite ready to go at the glass with wet sanding. If I get there, it'll will probably be pay a professional time so I don't ruin the glass.

Any suggestions from those of you who know more (probably a lot more!) than me?

Thanks in advance
Chris

 

The problem with anything you can get a fingernail in will leave the glass distorted if you try and polish it out. I've never had good luck in polishing glass.

 

Absolute best glass polisher is Original Bon Ami. Work it on the glass as a paste - will not scratch and will polish as much as your elbow can take.

 

This stuff has never failed me for cleaning water spots off glass https://www.quill.com/cerama-bryte-c...SABEgIfvPD_BwE ... magic ingredient seems to be citric acid. Anyway, I always apply to cool surface, do small sections at a time (2x2) with a polisher at low speed. I've also done it by hand but it's a lot more work!! Buy at Lowes or Home Depot.

 

Try plain white vinegar and/or CLR (Calcium Lime Rust remover) to remove hard water spots. Follow up with good glass cleaner of your choice. Plain vinegar works wonders on my glass shower stall walls, and we have really hard water in Parker, CO. What the vinegar leaves behind, the CLR makes quick work of.

 

If your end goal is to "polish" glass, the working ingredient to polish is going to be orthoclase feldspar - which is >90% feldspar (I believe) in the Original Bon Ami. The actual "working ingredient" in Scott's post is Feldspar, as well (but not as high a concentration as Bon Ami). The orthoclase feldspar is the compound which "polishes" the glass. Citric acid &/or vinegar will remove baked on water spots but will not "polish" glass. Both citric acid and vinegar are employed in both products as carriers. The calcium in CLR will dissolve in vinegar and render the solution a great cleaner, but it will not be a polish. The Cerama Bryte Ceramic Cooktop Cleaner does contain feldspar (but not nearly the concentration as Bon Ami) & it will also dissolve in the citric acid solution (in which it is packaged). Bon Ami contains the most orthoclase feldspar, next in the list would be Cerama Bryte followed up with the CLR. CLR contains no feldspar and as such would not be a very good "polisher".

If you're interested, when orthoclase feldspar dissolves in water (over a VERY extended period of time [think hundreds of thousands of years], it renders kaolinite). Kaolinite is the compound in which China cups/saucers/plates (serving ware) are created/manufactured/formed. A true polish is one which mildly abrades (polishes) & smooths but does not scratch the surface of another material. Polishes can easily be determined via the Moh's Hardness Scale.

 

Awesome info, Norm; thanks for sharing!!

 

I think polishing glass might be in one of the manuals. I believe I read GM process in CSM, but could have been Fisher Body Manual.
High RPM (surface feet speed) is not what you want. Orbital pattern would also help.

 

Correct. Glass is comprised primarily of silicon dioxide (Silica) SiO2 most often in the form of Quartz. You need to heat SiO2 above 3000°F in order for it to form a liquid. Manufactured glass (as opposed to pyroclastic rock [glass] which is shot out of a volcano) is not really a "solid". Instead, when it cools into a glass, it is considered an amorphous mass - clear, extremely hard, but not a solid i.e. amorphous mass. And, it is this visual appearance which lends itself to being "clear" because it does not re-crystallize and it does not re-organize into its original state when it cools from it's artificially induced molten state (>3000°F).

Try it on your house windows, shower glass doors, house door glass virtually any glass anywhere. Here's another example. I know for a fact the U.S. Navy and the British Navy (most likely most any ocean going vessel of any nation and/or private business) employ thousands of tons of orthoclase feldspar each year to clean & polish all the glass. Salt water baked in the sun etches glass. Orthoclase feldspar polishes glass - that's a fact and that's why they use it. They don't use orbital pads or any form of mechanical polishers - they use "elbow grease". Now go try it to your heart's content - you will be absolutely amazed how much you can polish glass with orthoclase feldspar. Notice in the Moh's Hardness scale it occurs just below what? Quartz. What's glass made from? Quartz. It will not scratch quartz it will polish quartz.

 

We use a paint buffer and light polishing compound. Made glass look new.

 

I think that would work well, also. Posting the name/manufacturer of the light polishing compound would be a big help here as not all light polishing compounds are equal.

 

For sure I used Megiuers. It was not the polishing but the lightest compound they made. I will see if I have the bottle for the correct number compound. Tonight I just dont remember.

 

Buffer RPM, pad material and pad diameter would be helpful.

 

I've used a few products over the years with varying results. The CarPro Ceriglas works pretty well when you use it with the right pads. It's a very messy, time consuming process, as you have to polish everything wet.

https://www.autogeek.net/glass-repair-kit.html

 

We use the wool pad. Speed I'm not sure. Just enough to not burn compound. Also so not perfect but helped polish stainless around window also. I learned this from a used car lot years ago..

 

A small word of caution (which should be evident from statements in this thread). You do not need to use any motorized appliance to polish glass. I recommend you use your hands for best most even results which can be almost immediately visualized/realized.

CeO2 [Ce-Cerium] (and its oxides) has a Moh's Hardness somewhere between 5 - 8, nearly identical to orthoclase feldspar. Thus, CeO2 is a very effective glass polisher. Both CeO2 (Cerium Oxide) and KAlSi3O8 (Potassium Feldspar) have been used for many years in the lapidary business for polishing (jewel's rouge) numerous gems, rocks, etc. In a nutshell, you add either Cerium Oxide or Feldspar to a tumbler (enough to completely cover all the contents of the gems, rocks, etc.), turn on the tumbler and allow to tumble for several days or several weeks, sometimes longer - depending on the degree of polishing required, the size of the mineral element, etc.

My choice for glass is to polish the glass by hand. Your mileage is going to vary if you use an appliance. With your hands you can easily determine the amount of pressure required to polish the glass. Your two best choices are Cerium Oxide or Feldspar in the dry state. Simply work either into a paste with nothing more than water.

 

This is all I could find in my library. Not much help, but interesting reading.

 

This is some useful stuff.

 

Combined with the basic tenets of inorganic chemistry, the Moh's Hardness scale is Geology (Majors) 101 in which you develop an understanding of the various class constituents of igneous, metamorphic & sedimentary rocks/minerals/elements. As the learning curve progresses, you gain an understanding of the cleavage planes of these various classes based upon bonding properties (which distinguish the various crystal lattices of each).

 

Impressive. I'm mostly into durometer in my stuff, and it's been a long time since Materials Science and Engineering class.

 

Does it hurt when you use one? I poured three 3.5' square 0.5' deep concrete (4000psi) pads for a new fence I'm erecting in the past several days. I was reviewing ASTM standards - something of a novelty to me which took me wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy down some off-beaten track when I elected to go digging into the foundation structures of some of the world's largest skyscrapers. Mind boggling.

 

We use a lot of urethane pads and UHMW nylon pads in a car factory. There's a compromise between datuming/support, mutilation, wear of the detail, embedding of debris, and so on. I won a major battle one day amongst the non-technical production management when I finally got them to let me hold up class C surfaces (non-visible cast chassis parts) with steel. We had no wear issues after that, an aluminum transmission case can't do squat to a steel datum detail, and, while you do end up with aluminum shavings and I did have to bring a manager down from a frenzy about mutilation when I told him that little oily mass of aluminum shavings was from probably a million transmissions down the line since five years before when I put it in, it's usually just casting flash.

 

I was watching Garage Squad today, and they used 000 steel wool to polish glass. I did not see the total glass up close, but they found it to do an excellent job of removing really old haze.

 

I watched the same episode, they used windex as a lubricant. I used them on my 67 C/S that stayed (uncovered) in my garage for over 20+ years.
It worked great removing the fine grit that was embedded in the glass. Not sure for water spots

 

Koda, I picked up a can of the original Bon Ami, but it says on the label "Do not use on glass". Is this just a CYA for them?

 

This is the official Bon Ami website: https://www.bonami.com/faq/

This is the statement from the official Bon Ami website. Not certain which product you purchased. It must be the Original Bon Ami 1886 Formula as I referenced in Post #16 (from Amazon). NOTE the capital letters "IS".

 

And, as stated on the I referenced in Post #16:

SAFE ON CARS AND SPACECRAFT: This is the only Bon Ami powder that is recommended for use on glass and auto glass*. NASA even used Cleaning Powder to clean the windows on Skylab. *(Only for use on auto glass that is 100% glass, such as found on older automobiles- without polymer additives or added plastics that could be clouded by abrasion).

 

Ok, My bad, I bought the white can thinking it was the original. Thanks for the info!

 

 

 

The original “Bonami 1866” is no longer available on Amazon. See links above. Is there a new package label for the same original formula?

 

Interesting - Unfortunate the original 1866 product has been discontinued, as witnessed on the official BonAmi website. Cesium Oxide is available on Amazon - that's a good product. IMO, the official BonAmi statement(s) are a form of CYA statements. I believe the purpose they removed the product is most likely the changes in glass manufacturing. Many glass fabricators are now using either impregnated or surface coatings - removing statements pertaining to "glass cleaning" removes liability.

Honestly, in my opinion, I'd use regular BonAmi compound/powder on any vintage glass. The original BonAmi formula contains ~10% feldspar which is the active compound - the Limestone is inconsequential w/ regards to abrasion since it readily dissolves in H2O. Use the original BonAmi product, mix it into a consistency like toothpaste

If you click on the discontinued BonAmi product on the official website, note the following statement:

 

I was going to embed/post the official BonAmi website which I provided in previous posts:

BonAmi

 

Is the original Bonami under a different label? This Bonami says “New Look” … I haven’t studied the ingredients. It states “scratch-free.”

BON AMI Powder Cleanser for Kitchens & Bathrooms - All Types of Surfaces, Cleans Grime & Dirt, Polishes Surfaces, Absorbs Odors (2 Pack) https://a.co/d/0wgWfef

 

I'm not a marketing rep. for any Bonami product. They've changed labels many times over the past 100 years. I've been using Bonami 55+ years. It never scratches anything. I routinely use it on ALL household pots, pans, stove tops, glass & even acrylic products. My Dad turned me onto this stuff 55+ years ago. During WWII they had something like 40+ 50lb(?), 80lb(?) bags of this stuff on-board. They used it to clean ALL surfaces in particular all the ship's glass. As any shipping owner can tell you, removing hardened sea salt from glass is very difficult without an appropriate cleaner. Vinegar + H20 doesn't cut it - Bonami does. Labels have changed many, many, many times.

 

The Amazon Reviews are inconsistent. One states the new label has 5 ingredients not 2 like the original.

 

You do know you can find Bonami in almost any grocery store for ~$2.50/14oz can.

 

It's in nearly every grocery store in North America....

 

I specifically provided you w/ the URL link (read that post) for the Bonami formula in Post 32

 

The product is owned by Faultless (now). I am not interested in identifying marketing, labeling, and other reviewers I do not know. Here's yet another review. For $1.89 I'm pretty certain you can afford to test it on a corner of any glass product of your liking.

https://store.faultlessbrands.com/co...eanser-14-oz-1