Glass Polishing, some cool little secrets.

The 1955 Gullwing will be getting it's glass cleaned well by master polisher Casey. 

Driving along in our Gull Wing Benz the other day I got caught out in a typical monsoonal rain shower that was pretty short and heavy, it became quite dangerous as the wipers were not working at their very best (even for 1955 wipers they should be doing a lot better), leaving long streaking marks across the screen, making it very hard to see!  After the rain had passed ( just 1 minute later) I hopped out and had a close look at the wipers and glass, blades were new, so I looked at the wiper arms, they were giving enough pressure for the blades to be working on the screen, so it was then down to a close inspection of the glass?. it had a lot of different materials bonded to the glass surface, which would have been from the many happy years of driving (and racing) it has given us. These minute items on the glass were causing the wipers to not be perfectly flush with the screen and helping create the issue of not being able to see safely in the rain.

Casey with all you need for good and effective glass polishing.

Getting the screen back to being a lovely flat surface is actually not that big of an issue when you use the right gear. Our Naked Glass is a brilliant cleaner, but it does not have the oomph to get in there and remove a lot of these other articles bonded on the screen. However there are two products, seemingly ?hidden? in our car care arsenal which work brilliantly for cleaning up glass and windscreens, both you would never expect to use for this task; Namely our Fine Clay Bar and then the Metal Polish? Clay bar?s job is to pull hard particles off from a hard surface (which glass certainly is), so a lot of the specks and marks bonded onto the screen like tar, bug marks, overspray can be removed quick and easy.
For some of the harder things to remove off the glass our Metal Polish is just fantastic, it uses a jeweller?s rouge which is brilliant for the deep cleaning of glass, removing a lot of marks the Clay Bar cannot touch, even removing light water marks, which can be quite annoying to clean off normally. If used with a polishing machine, it can even remove light wiper marks and scratches from the screen as well.
Using these as a system is a good idea for at least once a year on a daily driver, and as required on the more babied cars you have. Make a note, that the metal polish and clay bar is not for perspex, plastic or tinted items though, as these surfaces are soft and can be marked/damaged quite easily.
OUR STEPS TO CLEAN AND POLISH

Firstly, use the Naked Glass to totally clean the glass down. Spray on and wipe clean with a dry and clean microfibre buffing cloth.

Our FineClay Bar has detailed instructions inside, an easy read before the job.

Using the Clay Bar is quick, easy and super effective.

Wipe Clean before beggining with the next step of polishing.  

Get some of our Body Detail, spray a lubricating coat on the glass, ready for the clay bar to be used on it.  Do about a � of the windscreen at a time. You will find the clay bar does not work too well on a dry surface, so be sure it is ample wet! Rub the clay bar on the wetted surface, use a circular pattern over small sections of the screen at a time, till you feel (and hear on real dirty glass) it is perfectly smooth.  Wipe the screen clean with another dry microfibre cloth, use some Naked Glass or the Body Detial to make sure it is clean again, and allow a minute or so for it to dry before the next process?

Yep, you heard right, our Metal Polish is epic for cleaning up glass.

Second step is with the Metal Polish, if you have exposed rubbers or black plastic on and around the windscreen, it might be a good idea to get a light adhesive tape and mask these areas off, especially if you know you?re a bit messy! Reason is that the abrasive in the Metal polish can leave white stains if it gets on them. However, if you don?t mask up and get white marks, they are easy to clean off with our Vinyl Care spray and a gentle scrub using a soft bristle brush. You can finish the areas of with our Tyre Sheen, applied to the areas with a small bit of sponge.

Less is best with our Metal Polish, just a little bit goes a long way and is more effective.

Get a clean Metal polish cloth and apply a 10cm dollop onto the cloth and then apply, again in small section on the glass and a circular motion. Feel free to get a little bit aggressive with it, as this action breaks the diminishing abrasive down, making it more effective and giving you a kick ass clean screen! After you?re done and she has dried to a haze, remove with a clean buffing or metal polish cloth. Then when the entire screen is done, give it a final clean with the Naked Glass cleaner and wipe clean with the microfibre cloth so you?re done.

Buffing the Polish in evenly over the surface.

Remove the Polish residue with a clean microfibre cloth, like our Metal Polish Cloth.

If you have some harder to remove marks, or light scratches/ wiper marks (usually from inadvertently hitting the wipers on a dry and dirty screen, (which I do a bit as you mix up the light and wiper stalks from driving so many different cars!) It?s fixable, just apply the metal polish with a machine, using either a very hard foam compound pad, or a purpose specific glass polishing pad. Apply onto the screen, then turn the machine on at its slowest speed (so you do not spray you and the local area or shed in the polish compound) gradually turn the machine up to just past half speed and move over in a series ?passes? top to bottom, side to side, making sure you get a blanket coverage, taking extra time on the areas the marks may be in. Working on again about a � of the screen at a time I find about 4 to 5 passes is usually enough. Once you?re done, turn the machine off while it is still on the glass, pull it off and then clean down with a clean microfibre buffing cloth as above.

Harder to remove water marks might need a few applications, however we have seen some severe water marks that are virtually impossible to remove without damaging the glass, which means if this does not work, you will need to look at replacing the glass, but for all of but the most evil of cases this method works just fine.  

 

Dont forget to clean the inside of the screen as well, then your all done!

Your screen is now clean and you will especially note the difference next time you go driving in the rain, which although we try and avoid in the Gull Wing, I did wheel its nose outside in a small shower after doing all this and am happy to report that the wipers work great, just like they would have on the German autobahns in 1955!
Our products in this article are all on our online shop or at your local friendly Bowden?s Own car care stockist which you can find by clicking here.

If you have any questions about glass polishing, please email info@bowdensown.com.au or FREECALL our office on 1800 351 308.

Love your car,

Dan Bowden

Share