All language subtitles for IDA December 2022 Webinar Subtitles - English

My name is Ashley,

and I'll be your moderator for

today's webinar titled,

"Sub-Surface Glass Polishing

to Remove Wiper Marks,

Swirls and Scratches"

presented by Mike Phillips.

I also want to mention a few

words about the International

Detailing Association.

We're a nonprofit community of

detailing professionals sharing

information and support,

providing credibility and

standards throughout

the industry.

To those of you who are

members already,

thank you for your dedication

to the profession.

If you would to become a member,

simply go to our website

www.the-ida.com and click Join.

Now I want to take a few moments

to thank our 2022 sponsors

featured on the screen.

Our sponsors support help

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If you're interested in becoming

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In the Zoom panel,

the chat box will be available

throughout the webinar.

Feel free to type your questions

in at any time

and I'll present your questions

to Mike Phillips at the end

of the presentation.

And if time permits,

at the end of the session,

you can unmute yourself and

we'll open the floor

to questions.

So Mike Phillips is the Global

Director of Training for 3D

Products International.

His background includes the host

for two TV shows on

car detailing.

He is also the author of six

car detailing books and

one boat detailing book.

He's been a guest detailing

expert for multiple TV shows,

including my Classic Car

Chasing Classic Cars,

Two Guys Garage, Truck U,

and Motorhead Garage.

He's written over 1000 articles

on the topics of auto and

marine detailing.

He was the detailing trainer for

Meguiars from 1987 to 2009,

as well as the Director of

Training for Autogeek.com

from 2009 to 2021.

Mike currently teaches

automotive and marine detailing

classes at the 3D Training

Academy in sunny Stewart,

Florida.

So without any further ado,

I will now turn the presentation

over to our speaker.

Hey everybody.

Welcome to the IDA webinar

on glass polishing.

Thank you very much for taking

time out of your day to join us.

And I'm just going to go through

a process that I share in all my

detailing classes

to polish glass.

So the first thing I want to

talk about is there's two types

of glass polishing.

There's topical and there's

sub-surface.

Topical is where you polish the

glass just to remove anything

that's on the glass.

And this can be a build up of

road film or what people call

traffic film, water spots,

drizzle stains,

things like overspray,

anything that's bonded and

sitting on the glass that

doesn't wash off, that's topical

glass polishing.

And for the most part,

you can use any quality

compound or polish.

If it's clear coat safe,

it's probably glass safe.

And the goal here is just to

peel everything off the glass to

get it down to natural or pure

base glass. And for some of us,

that might be because we're

going to put a glass coating on

or a product like Rain-X, so

that's topical glass

polishing. The

abrasive technology for

that is less crucial.

But I would always recommend

using something that's

high quality. Again,

if it's safe enough

for clear coats,

it's probably safe

enough for glass,

and it can be done with any kind

of tool. And for the most part,

usually foam cutting pads,

microfiber pads or wool pads.

Softer foam polishing pads and

finishing pads usually won't

have enough bite to actually

peel years of traffic film and

water spots off glass. Now,

the other type of glass

polishing is sub-surface

polishing.

And that's where you've got

defects that are not on the

glass, but they're in the glass.

And that can include, real common

around coastal areas where

I live, are wiper marks.

Wiper marks, swirls, scratches,

and really heavy water spots,

pits, and chemical etching.

Sometimes there's things that

get on the glass that actually

disform the glass at the surface

level. Here on the coast,

a lot of times what happens

is airborne sand blows,

it lands on your wiper blades,

you hit the wiper blades,

it drags all the sand across

there and of course,

it flies off.

But for that brief moment,

it puts a little scratch in.

Now you multiply that over 2, 3, 4,
5, 6,

a dozen years and you got some

pretty serious wiper marks

going on there.

And this is real common

here in south Florida.

It was common where I lived in

Oregon, on the Oregon coast.

This car here actually

has wiper marks.

It's also got just random swirls

and scratches. Down here,

I'm not sure if you can see it,

it actually has some gouges,

okay,

where the blade may have came

off and the actual steel part

of the wiper arm hit it.

But from the camera that's

focused on here,

and this was probably the

hardest part about this

presentation,

was setting up the lights,

parking the car to grab

that overhead light,

and then getting the camera set

up so you can see the before

and after. But Craig,

would you go ahead and zoom in?

And what I want you to look at

and see if you can see it,

but you should see a pattern

where the wiper arm has

gone like this.

And there's a duller portion in

a radius curve here than there

is across the top and over here.

So those are the wiper marks.

And that's what we're going

to go ahead and pull out,

is these types of wiper marks.

Now, a couple of weeks ago,

I was doing some testing with

some glass products

on my own car,

which my daily driver is a 2019

QX 50 SUV. To prep the glass,

I cleaned it,

and as I was cleaning it,

I could actually see shallow

wiper marks in a 2019

daily driver.

So it's a lot more common than

most people think. Now,

I know a lot of you guys

that detail cars,

probably the majority of your

business is modern

daily drivers,

maybe more exotics

like Corvettes.

But I know you also get some

classics in like this.

This is a 1972 Oldsmobile 442

And I want to explain why

polishing the swirls and

scratches and micromarks out is

a better option for some

people and some cars.

So one,

some owners of cars like this,

they don't want to replace

the glass.

This is the original glass.

It's 50 years old.

It goes with the car.

They don't want to replace it.

They want to polish the

scratches out and keep it all

original. That's one reason.

Another reason, they know if they

pull the glass out around

the frame here,

they're going to find rust.

It might be worse than rust,

it might be cancer,

like really bad rust.

And that means instead of

replacing the window,

they've just turned the window

replacement job into a full

rotisserie restoration process.

And while it's a great idea,

some people don't have the money

or the time to do that.

They want to keep the

car on the road.

So they don't want to pull the

glass out because they know

if they see the rust,

it's going to send them

down that rabbit hole.

And then the third reason would

be because sometimes,

there is not any replacement

glass. Last summer,

I worked on a 1967 Ferrari

4 Cam.

I polished the back window out

it's for a famous restorer,

Ferrari restorer over

in Jensen Beach.

And he just flat out said there

are no replacement windows

for this car.

And they want to put

it into judging.

They want to show it

and have it judged.

And every place there's a

scratch in the glass,

they're going to get dinged

a point. So for them,

it was a better option to have

the glass polished than leave

the scratches in there.

Of course,

there was no replacement

available for that car.

So those are three reasons not

to replace it.

And the reason I bring this up

is because a lot of people say,

Mike,

why don't you just call Safelite

and have the glass

replaced? Well,

that's good for a 2018 Honda

four door Accord,

but that doesn't work for every

car and every car owner.

Okay?

So the next thing I'm going to

do is I want to talk about the

polish that you need. Now,

my oldest article on how to

polish glass dates back

over ten years. Now,

the thing about writing an

article is you get feedback.

And here's the most common

feedback I've gotten.

People would read my article,

they would buy the

stuff and try it,

and then they would say

it didn't work.

And what they meant was they

were too wimpy to make it work.

It works,

but you got to have a little bit

of muscle. Glass is really hard.

It doesn't buff like paint.

It takes some time and

it takes some muscle.

So you have to have the right

product, the right pad,

the right tool,

and you also have to

have patience.

And that's something I find a

lot of people nowadays

just don't have.

The next thing about the product

is this is a cerium

oxide base polish.

I've seen a lot of comments

online around my glass

polishing videos

and articles, where someone

will say hey,

I do that too all the time with

so and so's paint compound.

Well,

I've been doing this

a long time.

I've never seen anybody's paint

compound take scratches out.

I've seen it remove water

spots off the glass,

but not scratches in the glass.

So if anybody out there has

a body shop or a detailing

compound formulated for paint

and you can get scratches out,

give me call and show me because

no one's ever done that before.

So you need the right product.

And a little bit about this,

something about cerium oxide.

Scientists don't actually

understand how this works.

And a couple of things

I want to point out.

If you get a bottle of this and

pour some out into your

hand to feel it,

you're not going to feel

anything chunky or abrasive.

It feels like Jergen's

hand lotion.

And this is kind of interesting

because I've always wondered

when I polish glass

with the rotary,

how come I never saw holograms

in the glass.

And it's because the product

is not abrasive.

The way this works is called a

chemical mechanical action.

And scientists don't actually

understand how it works.

They just know it works.

And what happens is, you're going

to put the cerium oxide,

you need a rayon or a felt pad.

This will not work with a

conventional wool buffing pad,

a conventional foam buffing pad,

or a microfiber pad.

It really takes the right pad,

which is either rayon or felt.

You also want to be using an

interface pad like you

see me have on here.

And this is important mostly

just because glass is hard.

See that right there?

This is my interface pad.

The backing plate is hard,

glass is hard.

The padded thin is hard.

So you have everything that's

hard on you and you're buffing

out something that's curved and

it kind of chatters on you.

Simply by adding the interface

pad, it smooths out the action.

And the reason that's important

is because you're going to be

doing this for about an hour

to 2-3 hours,

depending on how bad

the wiper marks are

for a full-size windshield.

So the interface pad is

mostly there for you.

But it also keeps the surface of

the felt or rayon pad at 100%

contact with the glass,

because most glass is curved.

So it can conform,

it can compress.

But anyway,

kind of back to the

cerium oxide.

The way this works is I have my

good friend over here, Josh.

Josh, say hi.

Also a member of the IDA,

and he has a bottle of

pure clean water.

And what he's going to do is

he's going to be misting

the glass with water.

And here's what scientists say.

The water interacts with the

glass at the molecular level.

And when the spinning pad,

with the rayon pad spinning with

the cerium oxide moving

into that water,

that's where the magic is

actually happening.

So water is not a rewetting

agent to keep it liquid,

which it does that,

but that's not what

it's there for.

What it's there for is to

actually interact with the glass

at the molecular level.

Let's see my notes.

I also have it's a

messy process.

Notice how Josh and I have taped

this off with just a drop

cloth from Lowe's.

Our product is very friendly.

You could wipe it off, for me,

it's faster just to tape it all

off, throw the visqueen away.

But you could just polish

it out and wash the car.

It is water soluble.

It'll wash off with soap and

water. It's up to you.

I like to show the way that

it'll keep people from

complaining to me that

their car is a mess.

So we tape this off.

And besides that,

I'm going to go ahead and

show you how to do this.

I would say that you can

use any type of tool.

I've done this with

the Porter-Cable.

Most of you would agree that a

Porter-Cable is probably one of

the not only the easiest

tools to use,

but also one of the weakest

tools out there.

Most of the time I use a rotary

polisher because it's faster.

But I've done this with the

Flex Gear Driven 3401.

I've done it with the Rupes 15.

I've done it with Griot's Garage

orbital polisher.

So any type of polisher,

if it'll maintain pad rotation,

it'll work.

It's just this will be

the fastest way.

And most people that

have done this,

they recommend a rotary that

will go up to about

24-2800 rpm.

This is the Flex Cordless PE 14.

It has a max speed of

about 1400 rpm.

So it's not quite as fast

as what they recommend,

but I like the fact that I don't

got to mess with the cord and

the battery lasts a long time.

Besides that,

let me just go to show you now.

I put a piece of tape here.

I'm going to buff just on this

side. I've got a clock here,

and I think I'll go ahead and

I'll just buff for a solid

10 minutes. Okay.

I know this is kind of like

watching grass grow or paint

dry, but just bear with me.

And I'm mostly just going to

focus along the tape line here.

So when I pull this off,

you'll be able to see that

before and after difference. So,

Josh,

go ahead and give me some water.

Okay,

Great start.

Okay, spread it out.

I'm going to bring the

speed all the way up,

and I'm pushing down here

probably about 15 pounds of
pressure.

(Okay, water.)

We are at about 17 minutes after.

(Water.)

When I teach this in my car

detailing classes, (water)

I always teach guys

to have a buddy.

So this is something where it's

just a lot easier to have a

buddy to put the water on.

If I didn't have Josh here,

I would have to stop polishing,

grab the water bottle,

and add it myself. (Go ahead,

water.)

(When I come back up every other

time to go ahead and

add the water.)

(Water.)

So

I'm starting to feel this

right now in my deltoid.

People that have never done this

before,

it's an eye opener if you're

not used to using a rotary.

And I use a rotary all the time.

But one thing I would point

out when buffing on a car,

usually you're holding your pad

and working on a horizontal

surface or a vertical surface.

But when you do a windshield,

it's at an angle,

and so you really need

to brace your feet,

and it's just a different kind

of pull on your muscles.

(Water.)

(Water.)

(Water.)

(Water.)

(Water.)

This would be a good process

for a tag team.

(Water.)

(Go ahead and put some

water on there.)

How often are you either

switching out the pad

or cleaning the pad?

That's a good question.

Josh asked how long I switch the

pad out or clean the pad.

And for the most part,

I don't normally clean the pad

until I'm done with, like,

half the windshield.

Then I would give it a cleaning

with the brush. (Go ahead.

Water.)

And I'd use the whole pad for

the whole windshield,

so pad saturation really

isn't a problem.

And I've actually taken these

pads and washed them in the

washing machine when I'm done,

and I keep reusing them,

they seem to hold

up pretty well.

(Water.)

That's about five minutes of

solid polishing there.

(Water.)

(Water.)

(Go ahead and put some water on
there.)

Normally,

if I wasn't trying to have a

tape line here to show a before

and after difference,

I would divide the glass

windshield into four quadrants

and then tackle one quadrant

at a time,

usually starting in the center.

Imagine where the rear view

mirror is. Here's the quadrant.

Here's the quadrant.

You can try to tackle half the

windshield at one time,

if you're

really feeling good about

your muscles.

It's definitely easier to use a

orbital polish than a rotary

because a rotary does tend to

pull you a little bit.

(Go ahead, water.)

But this is the fastest way.

(Water.)

(Water.)

(Put a little water on there.)

Okay,

I'll go another three or

four minutes here.

I'm tired.

That's hard. Okay.

I think this is why I've always

read these comments for people.

They buy all this stuff and try,

they give up. It's not easy.

If it's easy,

everybody would be doing it.

But it does work.

So, josh,

you took one of my classes.

And I think in that class we

did a 73 MGB. Yeah, MGB GT.

So,

another car that would be right

around 50 years old,

had horrendous, furls,

scratches,

wiper marks,

and we polished them all out.

Pictures are on the internet,

on the forum.

Yeah,

that's the thing I

do in my classes.

I have everybody cycle through

on the windshield.

Everybody gets a turn to see

what it's like to hold

the rotary like this.

And by the time you have 15-20

people cycle through

on the windshield,

pretty soon it's looking

pretty good.

(Water.)

(Water.)

I'm going to call that good.

Let's see.

Okay. And as you can see,

because it's a rotary,

it's throwing splatter and

throwing some water on there,

just thins out the product.

It's not the goal,

but that's what happens.

So it does tend to

cause the product to sling

a little more.

Okay,

I'm going to pull this

tape line off.

And clean this glass.

And then idea is to take

our camera and zoom in.

And hopefully you'll be able

to see the before and

after difference.

If we've got how's that looking

on camera there? Craig,

can you see the before

and after difference?

It's okay.

Messy.

Okay.

Oh, yeah. From where I'm seeing,

there's a distinct line.

You can see the before and after

difference right there.

That was less than ten

minutes of polishing.

And and if you were

here in person,

there was lots of little random

scratches right in here,

and they are all now

been removed.

So that's kind of the process.

It's a slow process.

Serum oxide is a unique product.

Scientists think that comes from

asteroids and meteors, actually,

that impacted the Earth.

And somehow,

someone at some point found out

this works good to polish glass.

Has anybody got any questions?

We have lots of questions

showing up in the chat, too.

When you said pure water,

did you mean that you use

purified filtered water

and not tap? No,

I got whatever's out

of the sink there.

I'm not that OCD guy that's

always getting bottled water

for everything I do.

I know some guys are,

but just whatever came

out of the tap.

The important thing is, again,

and I'm not a chemist,

I never try to play one online.

Scientists follow the science.

Scientists say the water

interacts with the glass

at the molecular level.

So you've got water

in the glass.

And when that spinning pad or

the cerium oxide comes up and

grabs that water right then and

there at the leading edge of the

spinning pad or the majority of

the polishing has taken place

and it's really not so much

as abrading it as it is.

This isn't a really

good analogy,

but reflowing or melting,

it's not really abrading.

It's not like compounding paint

or polishing aluminum where

you're actually abrading the

surface and removing

small particles.

It's small particles that

are coming off,

but it's called a chemical

mechanical action.

How do you know when

to add more water?

Is it because the surface starts

to feel tacky and more

resistant? No.

When I start to see the

residue dry up,

I just asked my buddy Josh there

to squirt some more water on.

And in my classes,

I have a lot of things that

I teach the buddy system,

where just things go faster.

If you have a buddy and I know

a lot of detailers work

by themselves, I do.

But when you have a buddy or a

girlfriend or a wife or

someone to help you,

it just is faster to have

somebody miss the water on,

because if Josh wasn't there,

then I would be buffing.

And then stopping misting water,

putting the bottle down,

going back to buffing.

I've done it like that

a lot in my life.

It's just more time consuming.

It's faster.

To have a buddy just to miss

some water on there.

Why did you start on the

passenger side? Oh gosh,

great question.

I always forget some of the

things I didn't have

that in my notes.

So about ten years ago

in one of my classes,

I was teaching glass polishing.

Here's a couple of things that

I learned from a really

bad experience. One,

if a company sells a polish and

had as a system buy it.

They've already done the

testing, they know it works.

I was in a situation where I had

a glass polish and a pad from

another company and we had a

1983 Corvette with wiper

marks on both sides.

And this was when I was new

to glass polishing.

So I started out on

the driver's side.

And what happened was the glass

polish or the pad something,

instead of taking scratches out,

it started marring the paint,

started putting scratches into

the paint. And think about it,

if the things you have to take

scratches out don't work and

actually put scratches in,

you don't have anything else to

get them out, you're screwed.

And I just created a dangerous

situation for the driver because

now he had scratches worse than

he had before to look through.

So the first thing that that

taught me was a always start

on the passenger side.

If something goes wrong,

you didn't create a risk

situation for the driver.

They can still see through

the windshield.

And the other thing was,

if a company sells a polish

and a pad, buy them.

Don't be mixing and matching

because something

could go wrong.

But that's why I started

on the passenger side,

was to make sure everything

went right.

Now I've done this so much in

the last twelve years or so that

I knew everything was going

to work out right,

but I wanted to teach

good techniques.

That's why the passenger side.

Good question.

Thank you for asking.

Is this method safe to reduce

tiny rock chips on newer vehicle

glass? That's a common question.

So probably about

eight years ago,

a gentleman brought me a

Mercedes Benz that had tiny

pits in the glass.

He thinks it was a chemical

contamination.

Something landed on the

windshield and it just

dissolved the glass.

It was very shallow and I

bust all of them out.

The article for that is

still on the internet.

And if anybody wants to see the

before and after pictures,

shoot me an email and I'll send

you the link and you can see.

But to your question,

when you have rock chips,

anything in the paint,

you got to remember in order

to remove a defect,

you have to level the top

surface with the lowest

depth of the defect.

So that means you got to take

all the glass off until you've

got to the bottom of that little

pit there. And if it was paint,

it'd be one thing or gel coat

or aluminum, but with glass.

You can do it.

But it's just you're going to

spend a lot of time polishing.

In fact,

for something like that,

it would be faster to machine

sand the glass.

But that's not something our

company wants to teach people.

I machine sand glass whenever

it's the appropriate process

to fix the job.

I had a 1962 Corvette here a

couple of months ago with

horrible, horrible wiper marks.

I machine sanded the glass with

320 grit. Went to 500 grit,

went to 1000 grit.

Then I started polishing glass.

Looks like it's brand new.

The thing about teaching people

to sand glass is it's

easy to sandglass.

That's putting scratches in.

The tricky part is getting

100% of them out.

And just like it can be very

physically strenuous just

to polish the glass.

Imagine trying to get your

sanding marks out.

I think a lot of people would

probably put themselves in a

position they couldn't get out

of and then they would blame us.

So I'm not going to teach that.

But it is possible. In fact,

if anybody was at Mobile Tech

Expo last year in my glass

polishing class,

I took a brand new rental car.

It was a Subaru Outback.

And think about it,

rental cars are new.

They don't have any scratches

in the glass.

So in order to demonstrate

how our polish worked,

I put 320 grit sanding marks into
the

glass. Then I resanded with 500,

resanded with 1000,

and then I pulled them 100% out.

So I did actually show that live

in front of a little over 100

people. So it can be done.

But for the pits in glass, you know,

it just depends. If it's a

collector car like this.

It's an antique. It's a vintage.

Can't get the glass,

no one wants to take

the glass out,

then that would be something

I would look at,

is polishing them til the pits

are out. But just keep in mind,

the way you remove a defect is

you level the surface with the

lowest depth of the defect.

And with glass,

that could take a while.

Is the product you're using

cerium oxide? Yes,

this is the 3D glass polish

with cerium oxide.

I forget how many

tons we bought.

It took about a year to

bring this to market.

But one of the things,

if anybody out there has ever

used any of the 3D compounds

and polishes,

especially a product like

3D One or Speed,

you know how long that product

will buff. It's very oily.

It never dusts.

It wipes off really easy.

Well,

that same type of formula -

formula is the liquid,

cerium oxide would be the

abrasive with the powder -

it has that same type

of formula.

So it's very user friendly.

It's very trim friendly.

Most of the glass polishes I've

used are very messy and

hard to wipe off.

Our product is not like that.

Is heat an issue?

Heat is an issue.

I'm going to be real

honest with you.

I've gotten glass smoking hot

and I've never seen any negative

downside to it.

It's not a good idea.

But that's why normally, what I

would do, if I wasn't

doing this online,

I always look to the rear

view mirror as center.

So here's the center

of the windshield.

And I would go from here to

about one half that distance,

and I would tackle this area.

And so here's what that does

when you're running the polisher

over an area about that big.

While you're down here, up here

it's cooling. As you work your

way back up to here,

down here

it's cooling. So it doesn't

get that hot.

It's only when you stay in one

place that you start to really

generate a lot of heat.

But I've never had a problem

with getting glass too hot.

I'm sensitive to it.

I'm conscious of it.

I know it's taking place,

but I've never seen

a downside to it.

So

it's something I think we could

use more research on.

That's kind of out of my

area of expertise.

It would be great to talk to an

engineer at a glass windshield

company like St Gobain,

people that make glass and find

out what the tolerances

are for heat.

Do you prefer a rayon

or felt pad?

Most of my life,

I've always used rayon.

I was asked recently to

test felt. I did.

It seemed to work just as good.

This is actually a

felt pad here.

This is a rayon pad

I have on here.

Visually, they look the same,

they feel the same.

They're just a

hard material that's

really thin.

I think it's probably the least

important factor in the process.

The most important factor would

be the right product,

but it is a factor.

I had a friend one time that I

sent him some glass polish,

and he called me up and says,

hey, this isn't working at all.

So I says, well,

how are you using it?

He says, well,

with the wool pad on a rotary.

And I said,

that ain't going to work.

So he went and ordered some

rayon pads, tried it again,

calls again, hey, it's working.

Okay,

so it does take the right pad.

And again,

the most common comments
again,

I just want to stress,

when you have a how to article

that's twelve years old,

you get a lot of comments,

you read a lot of feedback,

people that have tried it,

and the most common comments

I've seen are this doesn't work

because they didn't work it long

enough. Or what pad do I use?

Or what tool can I use?

And the pad has to be a rayon

or felt. If I had my choice,

just because I have the

most experience,

I'd probably opt for the rayon

just to make sure I have

everything working for me.

But to tell you the truth,

just looking at them side by

side, I can't tell a difference.

And if you look up,

what felt is, felt from different

manufacturers. It's a material.

Well, what's the material? Well,

the material is rayon,

polyester, acrylic.

It's also similar to what

rayon pads are.

So there's just not that

much difference.

Any different expectations for

new glass versus 1970 classic

car glass? Well, yeah,

new glass.

I know there's polarized glass,

and now we got smart glass.

But here's one of the things.

Most of us shouldn't be in a

position where we need to polish

a brand new car glass unless

something's happened to it.

And if it's brand new and

something's happened,

I would probably take it to the

dealership and look and see what

the warranty is going to cover.

Most of the glass

polishing I do,

the majority of it, is on older

classic cars like this.

I do polish new windows,

but nothing past,

my QX 50 is probably

the newest, is 2019.

So do your own due diligence.

Don't put yourself in a

situation where you're going

to get into trouble.

Technology is always changing.

The phone I bought yesterday is

different than the phone

that's for sale today.

Glass is going to be one of

those things that changes.

But I do know this, look,

when you think about it,

the glass has to be able to take

wipers rubbing against it.

The engineers and the people

that design this stuff know that

they can put all kinds of things

in the glass and on the

backside of the glass.

But the part that is going to be

exposed to the world has to be a

very hard surface that can

take a lot of abuse.

So I don't know enough

about the most.

I don't know if there's anything

out there that's so high tech

that you can't work on it.

But if in doubt,

then it's time to do a little

bit of research.

I always tell people

to try Skynet.

Most of you know that as Google,

so do a little googling.

How much product is expected for

an average sized windshield?

If I was trying to be stingy,

I could probably do this

windshield about a quarter

of a bottle.

I think this is a 500 mil, 16oz.

So 4oz, maybe 4-6oz.

It just depends.

The first time you do something,

you're usually not very good.

You probably tend to

overuse product.

Just like with coatings.

When you get better,

you know the right amount to use

without wasting product.

Something like this, I'm putting

a little more on just because

it's a demonstration and I want

to make sure that everybody

watching can see that visual

before and after.

So I will hedge my bet on the

side of using more product

than less.

But I probably could have used

less product and just had

Josh add more water.

The water is not there

to keep it liquefied,

but that is one of the things

that does because as you're

buffing with the rotary or any

tool you generate heat,

the liquids evaporate out.

The product is still probably

functional,

but it's not wet anymore.

So the primary purpose of the

water is because it interacts

with the glass at a

molecular level,

but the secondary benefit is it

does kind of reactivate the

product so you can buff longer.

Good question, by the way.

Thank you.

Is cerium oxide the only

important ingredient or should

I look for more advanced

formulations than basic

lapidary powder?

It's the only important

ingredient I can share from

3D's point of view.

I know there's places you can go

online and buy cerium oxide just

as a powder. Mix it with water,

try to do it yourself.

I have tried that personally.

It's just a big mess.

Part of any product is the

formula, that's the liquids, and

3D makes great formulas and that

makes them wipe off easy.

Makes them buff without dusting.

So make your own if you want to,

but we make a really

good product.

It's the best glass polish

I've used to date.

Are there any key points to be

aware of when looking at

a potential new job?

Something that might be a

problem to keep an eye out for?

Yeah.

I mentioned a '62 Corvette

I did recently.

The worst wiper marks were

on the passenger side.

On the driver's side,

there was a little

tiny rock chip.

So what I did is I took a little

piece of tape and

I covered it up,

and I buffed all the way around

it for two reasons.

One is I was worried about

creating too much heat on

the actual chip itself.

It wasn't cracking,

but it was a little chip there,

and I didn't want to

cause a crack.

But I also didn't want to load

that chip up with a white

polish residue because trying to

get it out could also

cause problems.

So I explained to the owner.

I says, look at the chip.

He said yeah, I know it's there.

I put a piece of tape about

the size of my thumb,

like a postage stamp,

and I just worked around it.

And when you look at it from

5ft away, you don't see it.

But if you get up close,

you can see that where I put the

piece of tape is definitely not

as perfected as the

rest of the glass.

But the guy that owns the 1962

Corvette is doing cartwheels

because he can see through

the glass again.

He's not too concerned

about a little spot.

He's just happy the whole glass

in general looks so much better.

And it's also a safety issue.

I also did a 1960 Corvette

for my brother in law.

I machine sanded the

entire windshield,

and the reason why is

it was so scoured.

He says it was just a safety

issue to try to look through it.

We've probably all experienced

driving early morning or late

evening when the sun is low in

the sky and it creates haze.

When you've got a windshield

that's scoured with swirls

and scratches,

that could be a real

safety issue.

Sometimes any improvement you

can get is better than nothing,

especially if you're in one of

those categories where the

glass isn't available.

You don't want to take it out,

and you want to keep the

car original. So again,

everybody has to kind of make

those determinations on their

own. As far as pricing goes,

I've charged anywhere from $300

to $500 to polish out

a windshield,

and the longest it's taken me is

about 2 hours of pure polishing.

That doesn't include the time

it would take to, say,

tape off the car,

little things like that.

So it can be profitable.

But if nothing else,

it's also just, I have a lot of

people nowadays in my
community,

when they see that I've polished

out someone's glass,

the next thing they're doing is

they're either bringing me their

car or they're telling a friend

that has the same problem.

Again,

there's a lot of muscle cars,

a lot of street rods,

a lot of classics on the road

that have these types

of wiper marks.

And it's beyond the owner's

interest or capability or

financial resources to do

anything but polish

that glass out.

When this is over,

we're going to finish out

this whole windshield.

So I have taken some

before pictures.

I will write a full article.

I'm also going to shoot another

separate video and all

this information,

the before and after pictures

will be up on the 3D forum,

which is 3Ddetailtalk.com

I like forums just because they

they hold information better

than Instagram and Twitter

and Facebook.

Everything's

in a linear manner.

You can have a bold headline

with text below it that explains

what the picture is

going to show.

But if there's any

real interest,

you guys can find your way

to that and check it out.

It'll probably be up there

sometime next week. Yeah,

quick question for you.

Is that the 3D glass polish

521?

I don't know the part number

yet. Yeah, 521, you got it.

Yeah.

I was just looking at...

I have about eight bottles of this.

This is the production version.

I've got the beta or the lab

samples the chemists have

been sending me.

Every time they sent

me a new version,

it just got better and better.

The wipe off got better,

the lack of dusting got better,

the cut got better.

So once they got

comfortable with where it was

at, they went into production.

By the way,

what was interesting about this

was when I went to work for 3D

back in September of last year,

I talked to Tuncer,

who's the owner and the head

chemist, and I said, hey Tuncer,

I'm teaching a glass polishing

class at Mobile Tech Expo.

I always show a competitor's

product.

I just want to make you aware

of that. And he goes, oh no,

I will make you a glass polish.

And in one week I had

the glass polish.

He's a hell of a good chemist.

So it was interesting to see

the turnaround that fast.

It looks like another

question was,

do you use the same pressure for

the side windows as the front?

Yeah, you do.

I've done a lot of polishing

on side windows too.

You know what happens again,

it's mostly with your

older cars,

but the tracks wear out and

loosen and things come unglued

and the glass is going

up and down.

All of a sudden you see these

vertical scratches,

but you just approach

it the same way.

I had a 1969 Camaro in one of my

classes and on the

passenger side,

it just had horrific linear

scratches in it.

And normally what I do is,

if you think about it,

it's kind of smart.

Instead of asking one guy

to buff for hours,

if the class is 20 people,

I have everybody cycle through,

Everybody spend 10-15 minutes

seeing what it's like.

So when you leave here,

go back to your world.

If someone says,

can you polish glass?

You could say yes. I've done it.

I've done it.

But when you have 15-20 people

cycle through and everybody

takes a turn,

pretty soon scratches are gone.

So yeah, same process.

Back windows, too.

I work on a lot of street rods,

muscle cars,

and I'm always amazed at just

how bad the glass is.

Especially like back windows,

a lot of times you'll see DA

sanding marks in the glass.

You'll see it in the trim,

you'll see it in the paint.

I don't know,

I guess they were sanding

and they went off,

hit the trim and hit the glass.

But it's the same process.

If you really want to get into

glass polishing for the classics

and the vintage cars,

you're probably going to want

to learn more about how to

carefully machine sand.

And there is an art to that.

Perhaps someday I'll

write an

article and show how to do it.

I did do it at Mobile

Tech this last year.

I may do it again this

year at Mobile Tech.

I have three classes

at Mobile Tech.

They're at the end of the day.

The last eight years in a row,

I've had eight classes.

So this year I kind of gave up

some because I know a lot of you

guys want some classroom time.

So I'm good with that.

But I'm teaching the 3D

dry sanding system.

I'm teaching extreme boat

detailing and I'm teaching

glass polishing.

So if you're interested

in any of those topics,

I'll be at Mobile Tech Expo covering

those topics again this

year or next year.

Is there a safe depth limit that

you shouldn't go past and is

there a way to measure it?

No, but that's a good question.

One of the things about

polishing glass, is if you're

working just in one area,

you can see a visual difference.

You got to be careful of that.

That's why, again,

I don't want to encourage

anybody to go out

and sand glass.

You got to really have your

ducks in a row to do that and

not get into trouble.

But normally what you would do

for like a heavy gouge is you'd

start out. I would start out.

I've done this with Sunglass

where I start.

I cut my own sanding discs at

one inch, make my first pass,

then I go to three inch,

then I go to five or six inch.

So you're always kind of

feathering out so you don't see

that visual imperfection there.

That's one of the things that

you need to learn how to do.

You don't want to just sand in

one place and buff your sanding

marks out. You'll see it.

So you got to be careful.

But again,

you got to keep this, I love when

people play hypotheticals,

but in the real world,

if a guy brings me a windshield

like this and say,

it's got a horrible wiper mark

right here and he A. doesn't

want to replace it,

then I will take that out and

do my best to keep it level.

But

you have to just explain it to

him and say, what do you want?

Are you happy to have

the scratch gone

even if there's a little bit

of a visual imperfection?

If he says, yeah,

I'm fine with that because I

don't like what I got going

on now. I mean,

you only have so many options.

So take the hypotheticals and

work them all the way out,

but include every factor.

What can be done,

what can't be done?

And is the customer,

the guy that owns the car,

going to be happy?

Do you have to apply a coating

or other protection after

polishing the glass?

You don't have to,

but it's a good time to do it.

I'm going to just throw

this out there.

I'm actually not a big fan

of glass coatings.

Of course they work good.

But the problem I've tried to

explain this to people.

It's like nobody understands.

When you have a rubber wiper

arm rubbing on the window.

Think about it.

The coating you put on,

it's going to last where the

rubber arm is not rubbing,

but over here,

where the rubber wiper

blade is rubbing.

When that wiper blade rubs

against the coating,

is it going to make it last

longer or is it going to wear it

off? It's going to wear it off.

Okay.

So that's why I'm not a big fan

of anybody that advertises the

glass coating that

last for years.

Because I know in

the real world,

everywhere those rubber wiper

arms track is going to wear

that coating off.

You know what I'm a big fan of

is finding something that's

quick, fast and easy. Okay?

So we professional detailers.

We could polish the glass,

prep the glass and put

the coating on.

The average consumer

can't do that,

but the average consumer can

mist something on

and wipe it off.

And we sell a product called 3D.

Bead It Up.

And it's what I use on all my

windows, inside and out.

And it works amazing.

And I show it to all my

customers because they can

quickly apply it and

wipe it off.

It creates a hydrophobic surface

and of course it's going to wear

off. But the point is,

you can quickly,

without any training or special

knowledge or tools, put it on,

take it off, put it on,

take it off.

So that's kind of how

my brain thinks.

I like things to be repeatable,

quick, fast and easy.

Bubba proof, not complicated,

hard,

that only a few people in the

world know how to do it.

So everybody can kind of figure

out their own way. But yes,

to answer the question is,

after you've polished the glass,

that would be a good time

to do something to it.

Someone asked in regards to

the sanding on glass,

do you use silicone carbide

products or what do you?

I've always used the merca.

I think that is a silicone

carbide abrasive technology.

I'd have to go Google it

to find out. To me,

I know that's what the

industry uses.

So instead of trying to be a

chemist and figure it out,

I just buy this stuff and use

it. Also, just so you know,

you don't use it wet,

use it dry

when you're machine

sanding glass.

And will polishing

the rear window,

mess with rear defrost

wire in the glass?

They're on the inside.

They're not on the outside.

So it wouldn't be an issue.

if they were on the outside

that would look funny.

Someone asked if you were able

to fix the car that got messed

up on the driver's side when

you started on that side.

Yeah,

I'm going to polish at the

driver's side when we're

done with this video.

The point I wanted to make was,

if you're new to glass

polishing,

don't start where the driver

looks through the window

just as common sense,

in case something goes wrong.

Chances are nothing will go

wrong, but if it did,

it'd be safer to start where a

passenger would look through.

So if something goes

wrong, again,

since I've been through this,

if the things you bought,

pretend it's not this,

say you bought somebody else's

stuff and you tried it

and it didn't work,

chances are that's all you had.

That's all you had to fix

glass. And if it didn't work,

you don't have anything else to

fix what you just screwed up.

So when you're starting out,

just to err on the

side of caution,

always start on the

passenger side.

Once you prove your system

works there, boom.

Jump over to the driver's side.

Jump to the side glass.

Go to the back window.

But just don't always start

right where the driver looks

through. Prove your system.

It's kind of like doing

a test spot.

Dial in and prove your

system first

where it's not important before

you start working where it is

important. Make sense?

All right. You can hear me?

Okay. Yes. Okay,

so if you polish this glass,

let's say here December,

this guy comes back sometime

in June and says,

can you do it again?

How many times can you

polish a windshield?

I would say infinity. Again,

that's a great hypothetical

question,

but I'm glad you brought that

up. Here's something I do.

After I polish the glass,

I strongly recommend to the

owner to go put brand

new blades in, okay?

Why polish out the glass and

leave those old crusty, rubber,

worn out,

wiper rubber blades on there,

put some new blades on.

Not only will it work better,

but you eliminate the risk of

causing the original problem.

Because usually the original

problem is when the rubber wears

off and the steel blade hits it,

or just when it's just really

worn out rubber. Or again,

in coastal areas or

desert areas.

I lived in the Apple Valley.

I lived in Apple Valley,

which is the Mojave Desert.

It's very windy.

The wind blows the desert sand,

it lands on your windshield.

But you could do it as

much as you want to.

But it's kind of like that

question that people say,

how many times can you
compound

car paint? Well,

that's a great question,

but people think about

that wrong.

If you got a car that's jacked

up, you compound it.

And then you teach the owner not

to do the stupid things he was

doing to make it have to

be compounded again.

So then you don't have

to compound it.

And if you got somebody that

isn't smart enough to

stop doing the thing

like going through the
swirl-o-matic car wash,

to put horrible scratches in,

then don't fix it for them

in the first place.

Just use the one step cleaner,

wax.

At least that's what I

teach in my classes.

The first thing I teach people

in my classes is to interview

the car owner.

And the question you ask them

is, how do you wash your car?

That'll tell you everything they

know about paint and detailing

and taking care of their car.

And then you can go from there

after you find out that

question. So, good question,

but hypothetically,

you shouldn't have

to do it again.

Tell people to put a new

wiper blades on.

Now it is possible you'd have

to do it again. Again,

if they're in a situation where

it's out of their control,

the wiper blade isn't

the problem.

It's the stuff in the air

landing on the car. Okay?

But you could polish it

multiple, multiple times.

I don't see a problem there.

Glass is hard.

You're only working on a

microscopic layer of

the glass itself,

so you're not taking

off a lot of glass.

Put it this way,

I've never repolished anybody's

glass a second time.

No one's come back to me in the

last ten or twelve years

and said, you know,

the first time you did it was

great, but I need it done again.

It's just never happened.

Someone had asked,

will this address yellowing

in glass?

Say the question again.

Will this address yellowing

in glass?

When you're working

on the glass,

you're working on

the top surface.

So if the yellowing is on

the top surface yes.

That would fix it.

If it's in the glass or on

the inside of the glass,

you'd have to find, if

it's in the glass,

there's nothing you can do.

Glass has...

Windshields are made

of safety glass,

which has a has a membrane in

between two pieces of glass.

So if you get in an accident,

the glass doesn't shatter and go

into your eyes and your skin.

It all stays together. If the

membrane is somehow yellowed,

and I've seen that on really

old cars, like,

from the 1930s and 40s,

but I haven't really seen it

on a modern car. But again,

it's kind of like paint.

You can only affect the things

that you're touching, the very top

surface. I got another question.

I'm sorry.

I can never tell if you can

hear me. I'm sorry.

Regarding the old cars,

you remember the old cars, like,

anything from the 50s and 60s,
they had, like,

a serious curve to their windows.

On the Corvette or was it a

Riviera? A Riviera would have,

like, that curve to the window.

Oh, yeah.

Is that area in your experience

a little bit more thinner,

similar to a body panel?

Like when you get to an edge,

you know how it's thinner on

that edge that you could burn

through that paint? No,

I don't know for sure,

but I think the way they make

that is they have a

sheet of glass,

and somehow they mold it so it's

uniform thickness all the

way around. Okay.

It would not be an issue.

The hardest thing about working

on the back window on a boattail
Riviera would just

be the curve.

But instead of following

the curve,

I would just run the length.

I would just run the polisher

the length.

I wouldn't follow the curve.

I would follow 90 degrees

opposite of the curve.

Just make it easy on me.

Okay. All right.

My brother has an old

boattail Riviera,

so I'm very familiar with what

those windshields look like

or back windows look like.

Right. Thank you.

Zwick Detailing. You have a
question?

Yeah. Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you, Mike,

for this very interesting

lesson so far.

We've been talking about old

cars so far. Right now,

here in Germany,

due to our great green

politicians,

they use more sand and, like,

very small rock chips

instead of salt.

So I have a lot of customers

that brand new vehicles, like,

less than a year old,

after one winter,

the whole windshield is

splattered with microchips.

Is there any problem with

this sort of polishing?

Because I used to use felt and

my glass polishing stuff.

Of course,

you see that after polishing,

you have all the little micro

white spots in the glass,

and you have to pull it out

with, like, a toothbrush,

whatever.

Is there any problem with this

sort of polishing? Yeah,

that's the problem.

I've got a client with

a 1940 Ford,

and he routinely takes this

car on the power tour.

And it's a driver.

It's not a garage queen.

And it's a beautiful car.

It's orange.

I've used it a bunch

of videos down here.

But he had me get inside his car

about two weeks ago and says,

Look at it.

And there's these little pits

uniform all over both

windshields.

It is from debris hitting

it and his are shallow.

So I've told him I would take

that on and I would fix that for

him because he doesn't want to

take the glass out of this car.

He's a good customer too. I

take care of all his

street rods.

So it just kind of goes back to

a question I was asked earlier.

How possible it is to remove

100% of them depends on

how deep they are.

Because removing pits and glass

is a matter of taking the upper

surface and polishing it until

it's the same depth as the

lowest part of the defect

you're trying to remove.

So it could just be a matter

of more time polishing.

The only way you'll know is to

try. And for something

like that, again,

I always show people

as detailers,

when we're working on the hood,

we're pushing down.

We're working on a door fender,

we're pushing this way.

When you're working on a glass,

you're holding it at this angle

here and you'll feel it in your

delts on both sides the next day

because it takes a little

while to polish it out.

It's definitely easier to use

free spinning and gear driven

orbital tools over a rotary,

but the rotary is the fastest

way to take care of it.

So I just give it

a try sometime.

And kind of not to really

go off topic,

but I've always really hated how

the government can put this

stuff on the road,

but we can't hold them liable

for the damage it does

for our glass.

Kind of like here in the States,

they put down salt and other

chemicals on icy roads and then

it rusts out our car.

Now,

if some guy named Jim did that,

as a business, we could sue him.

Hey, look,

my car rusted out because of

what you put on the roads.

But when the government does it,

there's no accountability.

Look at all the damage they

cause and you have no recourse.

I just think that's kind

of hypocritical.

All right,

since we're past the 1:00 p.m

stopping time,

we're going to go ahead

and wrap up here.

I'd like to thank Mike for

sharing his knowledge with us

and thank all of our attendees

on behalf of the IDA for

joining us today.

Our next webinar is going

to be on Thursday,

January 19 at 12:00 p.m

Central Time. "Dry Ice:

The Future of Detailing?"

presented by Jason Otterness

and Eric Joseph. So, yes,

thank you everyone,

so much for joining us.

We have Mike Phillips' contact

information up on the screen

if you have some follow up

questions you'd like to email

him about. Have a great day,

everyone. Thank you.