# How to remove tiny pinhole pits in glass windows using a rotary buffer



## Mike Phillips (Jan 26, 2007)

How to remove tiny pinhole pits in glass windows using a rotary buffer

Here's a project I tackled this last Monday morning. In order to see the tiny pinhole pits in the glass you have to inspect for them early in the morning or late in the afternoon when the sun is out and low in the sky to expose the defects on the surface of the glass.

I used the finger technique explained here to capture the pinhole pits...

*How-To capture swirls, scratches, etchings and other surface defects with your camera*

Not sure how the tiny pinhole pits got into the glass but using my finger to enable the camera to focus on the glass surface you can see them here...

*Tiny tiny tiny pinhole pits in the glass*









*Glass Polishing is VERY MESSY*

All the glass polishes I've used are water based and best results are achieved when you use a rotary buffer. Rotary buffers tend to throw splatter dots via inertia with any liquid, especially if you over use the product but it's even more of a problem with a very liquid product and that applies to glass polishes.

One of the reasons is that since glass polishes are water based and rotary buffers generate heat, the water evaporates fairly quickly while you still have good abrasives still on the glass. To get more use out of the abrasives I mist on some water and continue buffing and the addition of the water re-liquefies the polish but also causes splatter dots to sling off the glass polishing pads and discs.

Take my word for it, if you ever do any glass polishing with a rotary buffer you want and need to cover all adjacent panels or you'll be wiping abrasive glass polish off all these surfaces when you're finished.

*Soft Autogeek Cover Up Towels with painters tape used to cover and protect the paint*









To remove the pits out of the glass I used some of my personal stock of Diamondite Glass Resurfacing Creme, which we're currently out of stock. To apply the Glass Resurfacing Creme I used


*Lake Country 5.5" Glass Polishing Pad*
*Lake Country 5 Inch Glass Cutting Pads 3 Pack*
*Flex PE14 Rotary Buffer*
*Flex-Foam HD Rotary Backing Plate*

*Note:* The Glass Cutting discs are hard and thin, that's their characteristic, just an observation, not a negative or positive comment. The point is they are thin and hard and glass is hard so one thing that helps a lot when buffing glass is to use the glass cutting discs with a flexible backing plate which helps make the buffing process smoother.










I buffed the glass twice, the first time with the thin class cutting discs on around 1800 RPM and lots of firm downward pressure. The wiped the glass clean and re-buffed using the foam glass polishing pad at 1500 RPM starting with firm downward pressure and then lessening the downward pressure for the last have of the polishing process.

*Clarity restored*









After removing all the protective toweling I wiped the car down with Pinnacle Souveran Liquid Spray Wax









Don't learn the hard way... anytime you do any glass polishing, cover and protect the paint on the car you're working on and any car parked next to the car you're working on.


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## stargazer (Aug 9, 2006)

Great work there. I must say pitted glass is one thing which lets any car down. That along with fine wiper scratches.


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## VIPER (May 30, 2007)

Top guide there Mike (wouldn't expect anything less of course :thumb.

I think this is a problem many will identify with and as said, can often let down an otherwise immaculately detailed car. I can see some members tackling this now :buffer:

PS. Branded towels.....hmmmmm


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## ant_s (Jan 29, 2009)

Would be interested in doing this myself, but after reading about it, I've found that if you create too much heat you can distort the glass, due to a material between the layers of glass?


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## Mike Phillips (Jan 26, 2007)

ant_s said:


> Would be interested in doing this myself, but after reading about it, I've found that if you create too much heat you can distort the glass, due to a material between the layers of glass?


As long as you don't keep the pad in one place for two long you should be okay, I've never seen any problems after the fact later down the road.

This was posted to our forum...



> Perfections said:
> 
> 
> > Mike great work! With those pads/backing plates how large of a section of glass were you buffing out?
> ...


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## Pedro.Malheiro (Mar 18, 2011)

hi.

I recently bought Flexipads Rayon Glass Polishing Discs to work on my father car glass that are really full of water mark's and in my girlfriend car that has a lot of risks, and I'm thinking to use with Einszett Glass Polish that I have already, is it OK to use this product with the polishing discs?
The amount of the product is relative in this process, should I use just a few of it or a lot? 
and, if the polish start to dry I should spray a little of water to the pad right? 

best regards Pedro Malheiro


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## The Detail Doctor (Feb 22, 2008)

You ought to offer a full kit of stuff for this process, it's on my to do list for the G1 Insight


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## Mike Phillips (Jan 26, 2007)

Pedro.Malheiro said:


> hi.
> 
> I recently bought Flexipads Rayon Glass Polishing Discs to work on my father car glass that are really full of water mark's and in my girlfriend car that has a lot of risks, and I'm thinking to use with Einszett Glass Polish that I have already, is it OK to use this product with the polishing discs?


I've never used the pads you reference nor the Einszett Glass Polish but I've read about them and their descriptions read like they will work fine together. They discs are probably like the Lake Country Glass Polishing Discs and the Griot's Garage Glass Polishing Discs that Autogeek carries and I've used both of these brands with success and no problems at all.

If you're trying to remove water spots and road film that build up on glass the discs and polish should work fine. If you're trying to remove defects that are "in" the glass, like scratches, then the polish must contain cerium oxide to be effective at abrading and leveling the glass without also scratching it at the same time.



Pedro.Malheiro said:


> The amount of the product is relative in this process, should I use just a few of it or a lot?


You want to use enough to have a visible film on the glass.

NOTE: I did my best to stress how messy glass polishing can be and the residue is abrasive to wipe splatter of your car's paint, so please take the necessary precautions like I show in my pictures to avoid any problems during clean-up.



Pedro.Malheiro said:


> and, if the polish start to dry I should spray a little of water to the pad right?


I misted some normal tap water onto the glass as the heat from my rotary buffer caused the glass polish to dry up before the product was used up. You should be able to do the same.

:thumb:


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## The Detail Doctor (Feb 22, 2008)

Having read this post & given that my car has some light wiper making on the screen I've ordered a glass polishing kit to see what luck I have.


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## Pedro.Malheiro (Mar 18, 2011)

thanks for that, I will post my results after, just got to find time to do it  

thx


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