Urgh!! ☹️

Mrs Gaz had a whopper of a bird poo on her Windscreen. She'd said she needed to get it off for a couple of days, but didn't.

So I went out with a bucket of water. It was like bloody concrete. Having used copious amounts of water I've still managed to add a few very minor scratches to the windscreen (passenger side thankfully). They're very fine, but Mrs Gaz has spotted them. I've tried toothpaste with a microfibre cloth, several times, and I think it's a bit better, but it might be a placebo effect. Elbow grease, but I think it probably needs a polisher.

I've looked online and can see various kits, including the obvious cerium oxide. Can I ask if anyone's found a product or kit that's particularly good? This one comes up on Detailing World:

CarPro - Ceri-Glass Kit | Glass...

CarPro - Ceri-Glass Kit

Carpro CeriGlass Kit This is a special glass polishing technique developed by the innovative special ceramic, Cerium Oxide, together with some other nano components. The overwhelming effect of re...

I'm sure these scratches will come out and I've got drills that I could use as a polisher. I suppose my other option is to see what the folks at a local windscreen repair place recommend.

Ta

Gaz

Ceri pro does get good reviews. Seems to be one of only a few products that have cerium oxide.

@numskull bought some cerium oxide alone, made a paste with some water and had good results. Not sure if this was just for contaminants or smoothing out scratches as well.

Edit - scratches too 👍🏼

Edited 8 April, 20251 yr by travs

Thanks Lee 👍

I've visited two local windscreen places, both of whom advertise repairs. Neither were interested and said to put up with it, or replace the screen (which funnily enough they could both do 🙄).

I've ordered the Ceri-Glass kit, and will see what I can do with that. Will report back.

Gaz

Yeah.. of course a replacement screen is the only answer!

I used cerium oxide on a small (25mm) medium pad, attached to the small battery DA I have, and that made short work of the end of travel crap on the drivers side blade, which caused terrible squeaking and thud as the blade stuck (literally nothing else worked) and it removed minor stone scratches on the blade arcs too. Oh and if you leave the oxide to dry in the container you use to mix it in, it’ll dry and it can be reused again.

The kit arrived yesterday:

So I set about it this morning, using the provided foam and felt pad. I taped the area so I didn't wander and kept my focus. It's a shame my photography skills aren't up to showing before during and after shots, but I simply couldn't get a photo of the scratches for love nor money.

I spent several minutes of enthusiastic rubbing, cleaned it off and buffed. Then repeated this two more times. What seems to happen is that as the product starts to dry a bit, it whitens and shows up the scratches, and then as you buff it they start to disappear. I'm not convinced that I'm actually removing the scratches, but it's more likely the product has fillers in it that makes them not visible. Dunno.

What I do know is it was bloody hard work and the bottom of my thumb aches. But I can't see the scratches, so I'll take that as a bit of a win. We'll see how long it lasts 🤞

I got an email the other day from the Carbon Collective who have just started selling their mini polisher again. At £240 it's a bit pricey (for me), but I think it'd probably be a good shout for doing localised areas of polishing, although I probably don't do it often enough to warrant spending the money. We'll see.

Gaz

Edited 14 April, 20251 yr by Gaz
Typo's galore!

Bit late, but you can also get a car pro rayon pad which will make life a lot easier if you need to go over the screen again.

A polisher is the way to go to make life simpler, but they are not cheap for a decent one.

Could you maybe borrow one from a friend if you purchased your own pad for it maybe?

I use this type of pad along with the ceri glass to clean windscreens from fallout and grease etc a few times a year, and it will happily remove wiper marks from the screen as well.

Just tape of the trim around the glass to avoid it damaging the plastic and don’t go anywhere near paint with it.

Edited 25 June, 202525 Jun by UndertheRadar

17 hours ago, UndertheRadar said:

Bit late, but you can also get a car pro rayon pad which will make life a lot easier if you need to go over the screen again.

A polisher is the way to go to make life simpler, but they are not cheap for a decent one.

Could you maybe borrow one from a friend if you purchased your own pad for it maybe?

I use this type of pad along with the ceri glass to clean windscreens from fallout and grease etc a few times a year, and it will happily remove wiper marks from the screen as well.

Just tape of the trim around the glass to avoid it damaging the plastic and don’t go anywhere near paint with it.

The Ceri glass kit already has a rayon pad with it I think - the orange block with the white side to it in gaz’s pic. I only know as I’ve previously bought one separately and it says Rayon down the side.

Agree a polisher will make mincemeat out of the effort like a drill driver does instead of a screwdriver.

Tbh @Gaz you don’t have to spend big money if you’ll only use it occasionally. The difference between a Flex or Rupes versus, say, a Das 6 is refinement. The latter will bring on fatigue much quicker than the former 2. @numskull was mooting a cheap and cheerful cordless DA with a 1” backing plate to me a while back. Would be absolutely fine for stuff like this I reckon.

This isn’t my DA but it’s similar to this one. They’re excellent.