Do the commercially available sanding sytems work ?
I have a large brand new site site with extremely deep scratches caused by a moron with a blunt stanley paint scraper. The main contractors are replacing most panels ( 80 double glazed toughened 6ft-6"x 6ft panels) but are trying to polish out many others. I have had a look at night with a strong LED torch and it appears to me that the scratches are still there.
I believe that some sctratch removal systems distort the glass and then it has to be covered with vinyl to hide the damage ?
The site owner has asked me my opinion.
I would be grateful of any comments as I was thinking of buying my own system but am not too impressed with the finished results.
From what I understand the systems can remove fairly deep scratches but the down side is what you’ve mentioned - distortion. I don’t know if this is the type of job to start on. There is (from what I understand) a learning curve and deeper scratches require a higher skill set to get decent results.
I have a scratch hog system that I bought. It does work but the distortion can be bad depending on angle and light. I repaired a window that was about 5x5 and other than 2 hours of the day it looks great. They do have a huge learning curve. At least for me they did. It can be done but I would suggest lots of practice before you try or say you will do it. If you try and keep your work area small a deep scratch will leave a lot of distortion. With really deep scratches I like to work the scratch out and then come out from that scratch and inch for every polish step. this makes the distortion in a wider area but is not as noticable.
Off topic, but do you enjoy doing scratch removal? I thought I would but at the end of a job I am just wore out and sore. needless to say i am not as happy with it as I thought I would be.
I am also rope access trained so high rise is an option. I own a versa beam and have done lots of ccu work off a chair. In fact, that was my entry gig so-to-speak.
Florida had 5 major hurricanes in 04 within a 6-8 week period. We got nailed…nailed again and nailed yet more and more. bam…bam…bam…
So, Florida passed a law wherein all new buildings had to install either shutters or impact glass. This law affected new blds within 10-12 miles from the coast.
this glass aint cheap. It starts at $14 a square foot. You think fab debris is an issue on plain ole tempered glass? You oughtta see it on this stuff!
so, now the builders who wouldnt listen before suddenly had bazillions of $ invested scratched glass at 3-6 stories with NO lift access since now the pool or trees or parking lot was in place.
Home owners were holding them hostage. “Fix this crap or we aint closing!”
I was busier than a one armed man in a paper hanging contest.
day in and day out…three SRP’s, Scratch Hogs…buring up some glass.
I was sick of it the first week! But I made some serious cashola.
Nothing sux more than holding either machine for hours upon hours every single day.
True that. I ran mine for two days in a row and that was enough for me. On the bright side after about two hours your arms sorta go numb to the pain. it was my back that hurt. I mainly just use the scratch removal for water stains any more. I like to watch it collect dust on the shelf.
I’m also interested in scratch removal. Anyone ever deal with Eagle Glass and Windows? On a recent project after removing the film and cleaning the glass when the sun hit we noticed all the glass was swirled with really fine scratches.
The Contractor wants a price to do polish them out but I’ve never done this before.
Any advice??
Thanks
