Sorry about hijacking a thread, but I figured posting here made more sense than creating a new thread about the same thing.
I have been wanting to try to buff the pits and wiper scratches out of my windshield for a few years. I read a handful of forum posts about what to do and what to use, I also watched a couple videos of guys polishing windshields so I would be comfortable with it. I have a Flex 3401 and Ceriglass polish, I also have the DP Glass Restorer which I know isn't meant to polish glass so much as deep clean it. I had some time this week to try it and figured I would stop putting it off.
I have a 1997 BMW M3 with the original windshield and it is has pretty bad scratches from wiper blades, but the tiny pits are worse. I first cleaned the windshield twice with Sprayway, then clayed the glass then cleaned it 2 more times with Dodo Juice Clearly Menthol. I then took a couple pictures to get a before and after shot. The first two show the pin holes and wiper scratches. The third picture shows my overboard masking of the car so I don't get any polishing dust/splatter on the paint or rubber. I then got to work with the ceriglass using a carpro rayon pad and it seemed to be helping with the wiper marks and I was misting the windshield with water to keep it moist while buffing. I added a little more ceriglass and kept up with the water misting as I was going, but then I decided to use a fresh pad. I believe I grabbed a LC Rayon glass polishing pad as I had originally ordered those before getting the carpro ones. And went about what I was doing before.
Well it seems either they didn't play well with the ceriglass or I messed something up because now the wiper marks are gone, but the pits are still there, and now I have introduced swirl marks into the glass as you can see from the fourth picture. I also made the mistake of starting on the driver side, even though I should know better, (I read the other posts that Mike linked and have been heavily into detailing as a hobby and for small profit for 8 years). I am currently feeling sick about what has happened and don't want to make it worse.
Is there anything I can do short of replacing the windshield, the swirls are not deep enough to feel. I wasn't sure if I went back to the carpro pads and used more pressure if that would help. I don't know how much pressure is too much. When I was buffing the windshield in the first place I wasn't pushing down very hard, mostly using the weight of the Flex to do the job.
Any help on this matter would be hugely appreciated. This car is my baby and it makes me sick that I would hurt her like this.
. Not sure if there's a hardness difference to windshield glass on a German car or if it is just due to the glass being 20 years old with 130,000 miles on it, but I ended up spending a total of about 8 hours working the glass not counting the breaks I took to let the flex cool down which it doesn't do very quickly. Counting prep, masking, nearly giving up after the LC pads damaged the glass, and then actually getting the glass to look better this took 2 days. Now I gotta coat it. 