Scratched windscreen repair

[Mark Gordon]

I can't find the original thread, but last summer or autumn, we had a discussion about repairing scratched windscreens. I had posted in a reply that I had purchased a kit for removing scratches and that I would post a write-up of my experience after the warm weather driving season ended. Well, one thing lead to another and I finally got around to doing the job today. I must say that I'm very pleased with the results. For about 70 bucks and about an hour's work, I eliminated the scratches. Sure beats the cost and hassle of replacing the windscreen.

The kit that I bought was from Eastwood here in the States.
https://www.eastwood.com/glass-polishin ... -5658.html
They have another kit that is intended for removing minor scratches that you can't feel with your fingernail but my windscreen definitely needed the heavy duty kit.



The kit includes three grades of abrasive disc, a mounting disc for your electric drill, a felt polishing pad and a hook and loop mounting disc for the drill and a generous supply of polishing powder.

It's a little hard to see, but here's what I started out with:




The instructions warn that it is important to mask off the area that is to be repaired so that you don't get the polishing powder on the rest of the car. I cut a hole in a large piece of plastic film and taped it onto the windscreen.



Then, you mark the scratch locations on the inside of the windscreen so that once you start polishing, you can see where the scratches are. The abrasive disc slurry and then later the polishing paste slurry obscure the scratches.





Take your time, slowly working through the progressively finer abrasive discs and then patient use of the polishing compound and you will be able to completely remove the offending scratches. It took me about 30 minutes with the abrasive discs and then about another 40 minutes with the polishing compound to achieve excellent results.






Many of these advertised products turn out to be snake oil, but Eastwood's kit is the real deal.

[Durango2k]

Hi Mark,

Seems you found the solution for my problem :-), one of my two screens (not fitted yet) may be saveable this way.

I‘ll upload a picture in a few days, maybe you could help me judging wether it looks reparieable with the kit?

Do you see any distortions ? I think the glass must be thinner now where you abrased it- this should / will alter the optical properties?

Kind regards,

Carsten

[Mark Gordon]

"Do you see any distortions ? I think the glass must be thinner now where you abrased it- this should / will alter the optical properties?"

No, I don't see any distortions although that is one of the things that the directions caution against. I think that the key is to keep the abrasive discs moving and to feather the repair out well beyond where the scratch is located, much like you would do with a paint repair. If the damage is too deep, then I would think that distortion would be unavoidable, but for ones like mine (perhaps a half millimeter or so), any distortions are insignificant.