What am I looking for ? Rotary or orbital or flex?

R

rsutoratosu

New member
Joined
Mar 12, 2019
Messages
8
Reaction score
0
This world is semi new to me, I have a 7424 DA but to correct severe glass scratches, I read that rotary is the way to go. All 3 cars are really bad, I need to clean and remove severe micro scratches. Its one of those that are not visible in day light but night time gets annoying. I had use cerium oxide with the glass polishing pad on the 7424 but it seem to take a log time. So I figure its time to invest in something new. From a few threads it seems like I need a rotary buffer, I also read this new flex might be good too. Any suggestions ?

I'm not looking to spend too much, but want to get the job done. I have some griots 6" and some 5" glass polishing pads left (new). So like to get something that fits them.

Thanks for any tip

-Roranji
 
You say this is new to you, so I would either consider not using a rotary or get a body & glass panel from a junk yard to learn and practice on before working on your vehicles, because in inexperienced hands things can go very bad with a rotary machine very quickly. A better choice and If it were me, I would start with your DA and an aggressive pad first, that may be all you need. Always start with least aggressive solutions first and then move up as necessary.
 
I only asked because I tried the DA for about a few hrs, and it didn't seem to make a difference on my test car. I have a 94 honda civic to practice rotary on. its so old, and all broken and its just in the driveway doing nothing. Worse case I can replace all the windshields. I dont want to go that route because of calibration issues with non oem glass, insurance always want to cheap out first, but if all else fails, I have that option.

I replace windshields before but the issue with glass slowly comes back, so eventually Ill need to polish/clean it
 
4
rsutoratosu said:
I only asked because I tried the DA for about a few hrs, and it didn't seem to make a difference on my test car. I have a 94 honda civic to practice rotary on. its so old, and all broken and its just in the driveway doing nothing. Worse case I can replace all the windshields. I dont want to go that route because of calibration issues with non oem glass, insurance always want to cheap out first, but if all else fails, I have that option.

I replace windshields before but the issue with glass slowly comes back, so eventually Ill need to polish/clean it
Click to expand...

Get a cheap rotary from HF. You don't need a $300 machine to polish glass that may never have to be polished again.
 
You need a glass polish with Cerium Oxide.

I teach glass polishing. One of my rules is,

If a company makes a cerium oxide glass polish and the pads to go with them - buy them.

Don’t mix and match pads and products. Griots makes pads and a glass polish but it’s not a cerium oxide polish.

Check out CarPro pads and Ceriglas glad polish.

;)
 
Mike Phillips said:
You need a glass polish with Cerium Oxide.

I teach glass polishing. One of my rules is,

If a company makes a cerium oxide glass polish and the pads to go with them - buy them.

Don’t mix and match pads and products. Griots makes pads and a glass polish but it’s not a cerium oxide polish.

Check out CarPro pads and Ceriglas glad polish.

;)
Click to expand...


thanks. Ceriglass I been using. By hand. I think I’m gone through 3 bottles since 2011

ill get the carpro pads when I pick up my rotary. I been having this issue since 1999. End up switching cars and not bother.

I now want to fix it and keep the cars

if I get rotary from HF. Any speed range I need to pick up ?
 
rsutoratosu said:
thanks. Ceriglass I been using. By hand. I think I’m gone through 3 bottles since 2011

ill get the carpro pads when I pick up my rotary. I been having this issue since 1999. End up switching cars and not bother.

I now want to fix it and keep the cars

if I get rotary from HF. Any speed range I need to pick up ?
Click to expand...

1200 rpm should be fast enough. Caution, polishing glass with a rotary can get messy. You need to keep the glass moist with a spray bottle which in turn will create splatter.

Mike P recommends a beach blanket to cover your wiper cowl and hood to catch the splatter. Ceri glass is water soluble which should clean up rather easily.

Polishing glass is messy and time consuming. Do small sections and take your time.
 
These are the blotches i'm trying to remove.. so far nothing really gets rid of them, I used No Touch GS8 Auto Glass Stripper, it gets rid of some but not completely. So mechanically is the way to try next.

View attachment 68189
 
Ok, I only found 5" carpro pads.. I assume I need a 5" rotary backing ? didn't search hard enough, HF seem to only have 7" rotary.. ill try looking again
 
rsutoratosu said:
Ok, I only found 5" carpro pads.. I assume I need a 5" rotary backing ? didn't search hard enough, HF seem to only have 7" rotary.. ill try looking again
Click to expand...
It's the backing plate that is 7". The spindle is 5/8", so a 5" backing plate with a 5/8 female fitting will work.

And yes Car Pro's rayon pads only comes in 3" (odd size) and 51/4" sizes.
 
rsutoratosu said:
These are the blotches i'm trying to remove.. so far nothing really gets rid of them, I used No Touch GS8 Auto Glass Stripper, it gets rid of some but not completely. So mechanically is the way to try next.

View attachment 68189
Click to expand...

Was this the same you used CeriGlass and the DA polisher?

Have low expectations when polishing glass. It's on very shallow defects you can make an impact on them. Basicly if you have a noticeble scratch it will take a long time to correct it. If you have a lot of damage it's very time consuming for a very little results from it. And if you you are going to correcting glass I would protect the surroundings with tape and plastic covers that you see painters use when they mask off. When you use CeriGlass or any other cerium oxide abrasive based glass polish. You heat up the glass and the polish dries fast so you pretty much always reactivate it with water so it don't just dust away. This gets very messy work and if you don't want to spend hours of cleaning too make sure this wet slurry mess don't get anywhere but on the glass and plastic covers.

It's also much about heat management as you can get a very high heat build up. So feel the glass constantly so you don't get a too high of a heat build up. Windshields has a kind of a laminates in the middle of the glass between the outside and the inside. This is a safety reason and all vehicals must have them but don't remember exactly the year this was getting as a standard but have been for a long time. So if you heat up the windshield too high you can damage this laminate. It's so the glass won't gets to little pieces as some side windows does when it breaks. And this laminate when getting enough heated up the first damage is that it gets hazy/foggy. If you are unlucky it can even separate from the glass inside and you get moisture in it since it's constantly warmed up and cooled down from the natural environment it faces. Also since you spray water on it regualary you can get the glass to crack. This is when you put in the time to do a little correction on the glass. If you deep clean it and maybe correct the wiper blade trail that's caused by the rubber and fine dust cought in between the wiper blades and the glass.

Seems like it's water spot etching on the picture you showing or do you have anything else like a tree or something that you parking under? Tree sap from some trees can be very acidic and cause etching on the glass. So it's depends on how deep defects these have caused. Or a if it's just very shallow to non defects and cleans up with the glass polish.

Just want to be straight forward so you know what you are getting in to. And that even if you put in a lot of hours and much of product and also the investment in a rotary polisher. You may still be needed to be replacing the windshield. And it's even harder to say than polishing paint if it's going to work or not. I just did some glass polishing last week on a very scratched hatch window on a Ford Focus I maintain. They had proberly used paper to clean the glass with dust from gravel roads on the window. So fine scratches every where and also a lot of wiper blade trail that's caused by the gravel dust being wiped off with it. Some of the wiper blade trail was corrected and the bad ones a little improvement on. So it where not worth it to put in the time on it other than cleaning it deeply with the CeriGlass and their Rayon Glass Polishing Pads. Used a 3" mini polisher with a 12mm throw. So have your expectations set very low when you polishing glass. And you can be happy when seeing the minor results you can get from it. 3M has a glass polish with 90% of cerium oxide abrasives in it. Don't know how much it's in the Carpro CeriGlass but don't think it's as high as 3M. You mostly can imagine the difference when you find the price on the 3M glass polish as it's very high. So I don't think that the retail glass polishes has such a high procentage in them. And for doing any kind of correction on glass you need a lot of abrasives in it.

/ Tony
 
@Tony, if your concerned with amount of cerium oxide in a product and cost..you can get c/o in a powder form and mix your own surly.
 
Rsurfer said:
It's the backing plate that is 7". The spindle is 5/8", so a 5" backing plate with a 5/8 female fitting will work.

And yes Car Pro's rayon pads only comes in 3" (odd size) and 51/4" sizes.
Click to expand...

You can get a smaller rotary backing plate that will fit the HF rotary from here on good ol Autogeek. If glass is all you are using a rotary for, I'd get the flex 3" pe8 rotary.
Great little machine, easier to get into tighter spaces. Great for headlights, too.


Bill
 
Hi no, that isn't the spot I polish. This is the driver side, yes, some times I park under tree, maybe 2 days out of a week for 8-9 hours over night. Reset of the time its treeless. I had safelite glass look at it, they seem to think its all the gunk from the road. When I used the DA w/ ceriglass, it was a bit better but I did it maybe 3-4 years ago when I didn't have complete info on how to use the product correctly. I did spray water on it but didn't work it in enough. I feel like I should work it on during fall because its cooler and wont heat up as much as summer. I still havent bought a rotary yet, busy with work so haven't done more research into finding one with all the backplates

SWETM said:
Was this the same you used CeriGlass and the DA polisher?

Have low expectations when polishing glass. It's on very shallow defects you can make an impact on them. Basicly if you have a noticeble scratch it will take a long time to correct it. If you have a lot of damage it's very time consuming for a very little results from it. And if you you are going to correcting glass I would protect the surroundings with tape and plastic covers that you see painters use when they mask off. When you use CeriGlass or any other cerium oxide abrasive based glass polish. You heat up the glass and the polish dries fast so you pretty much always reactivate it with water so it don't just dust away. This gets very messy work and if you don't want to spend hours of cleaning too make sure this wet slurry mess don't get anywhere but on the glass and plastic covers.

It's also much about heat management as you can get a very high heat build up. So feel the glass constantly so you don't get a too high of a heat build up. Windshields has a kind of a laminates in the middle of the glass between the outside and the inside. This is a safety reason and all vehicals must have them but don't remember exactly the year this was getting as a standard but have been for a long time. So if you heat up the windshield too high you can damage this laminate. It's so the glass won't gets to little pieces as some side windows does when it breaks. And this laminate when getting enough heated up the first damage is that it gets hazy/foggy. If you are unlucky it can even separate from the glass inside and you get moisture in it since it's constantly warmed up and cooled down from the natural environment it faces. Also since you spray water on it regualary you can get the glass to crack. This is when you put in the time to do a little correction on the glass. If you deep clean it and maybe correct the wiper blade trail that's caused by the rubber and fine dust cought in between the wiper blades and the glass.

Seems like it's water spot etching on the picture you showing or do you have anything else like a tree or something that you parking under? Tree sap from some trees can be very acidic and cause etching on the glass. So it's depends on how deep defects these have caused. Or a if it's just very shallow to non defects and cleans up with the glass polish.

Just want to be straight forward so you know what you are getting in to. And that even if you put in a lot of hours and much of product and also the investment in a rotary polisher. You may still be needed to be replacing the windshield. And it's even harder to say than polishing paint if it's going to work or not. I just did some glass polishing last week on a very scratched hatch window on a Ford Focus I maintain. They had proberly used paper to clean the glass with dust from gravel roads on the window. So fine scratches every where and also a lot of wiper blade trail that's caused by the gravel dust being wiped off with it. Some of the wiper blade trail was corrected and the bad ones a little improvement on. So it where not worth it to put in the time on it other than cleaning it deeply with the CeriGlass and their Rayon Glass Polishing Pads. Used a 3" mini polisher with a 12mm throw. So have your expectations set very low when you polishing glass. And you can be happy when seeing the minor results you can get from it. 3M has a glass polish with 90% of cerium oxide abrasives in it. Don't know how much it's in the Carpro CeriGlass but don't think it's as high as 3M. You mostly can imagine the difference when you find the price on the 3M glass polish as it's very high. So I don't think that the retail glass polishes has such a high procentage in them. And for doing any kind of correction on glass you need a lot of abrasives in it.

/ Tony
Click to expand...
 
Looks like ill be going that route. thanks

rangerbay said:
You can get a smaller rotary backing plate that will fit the HF rotary from here on good ol Autogeek. If glass is all you are using a rotary for, I'd get the flex 3" pe8 rotary.
Great little machine, easier to get into tighter spaces. Great for headlights, too.


Bill
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top