Just wondering. You see there are two ways we can work on glass. Bronze and steel wool actually rub glass. The strands move across the surface. Whereas microscopic particles such as diamond or boron nitride will scratch. They polish by scratching. There are particles that are micro-strands and they also rub. So the effect is different. Of course all of this science means total squat when it comes right down to IT! Ya just have to look at the animal. Straight down the mouth of the tiger. So sensitize a brand new mirror plate with a cerium, hit it with some bronze wool, apply some HF to one half, then bring it into a dark room and look at it with a bright flashlight. Look straight down the beam. What do you see? What do you see?
I’ve never gotten that involved in looking for scratches that would be so fine you wouldn’t normally see them, but in all the windows I’ve hit with steel wool, I’ve only visibly scratched one, and that was in maybe the first month of me learning to wash windows. Stupid me used steel wool on a window with tint and being a newbie, didn’t realize it until too late. Luckily it was a small, cheap single pane windows and my boss, and the customer, wasn’t too upset about it.
Yep. I have been there and did that. Fortunately in my case the tint had a hardened acrylic scratch protective coating on it and no harm was done.
If steel wool is scrubbed way too hard it can leave a scratch patch. I have done it. Also it can leave zillions of very fine scratches which can only be seen in the bright sunlight at just the right angle. Even a 3 micron cerium oxide particle can do this, why not a 25 micron steel fiber. Especially on what I prefer to call defective surfaces. That is my own personal viewpoint. Remember guys. I have been doing this work for almost 40 years now. I have made most mistakes. Etched glass, scratched glass, destroyed plexiglass, scratched mylar tint. There is always that sick feeling in your stomach when you make a mistake. So I truly DO empathize with everyone of you out there.
