Glass Scratch Repair methods anyone??

[psuj22]

Hi everyone,
I recently picked up 155 bow front tank for a great deal, but it’s filled with a lot of fine scratches on the front and side glass (I think the guys was cleaning the glass with the magnet while it was dry)

Anyone know if there is a way to quickly get rid of scratches on glass? I’m trying to salvage the tank if I can... But I also want a fairly clean tank as this will be my main display upgrade from my current 92 corner (my corals are outgrowing the tank). I spoke someone at THR... who recommended “Novus Fine scratch remover” (for acrylic) and said that it worked on their glass tank... but not sure if this will work or hold up over time.

Please let me know if anyone knows of a better… Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks and happy holidays!!
Jay.

[FishTri]

I've got no hand's-on experience to back this up, but I'm vaguely familiar with the process, so take this as a starting point...

Something like a 'wipe-on" fine scratch remover will simply try to fill the crack. It may reduce the appearance, but I'd be surprised if it makes them disappear. Especially if there are a bunch of them. And I'm thinking that an aquarium, with all of its bright lighting, is a challenging background to make a scratch invisible.

The other option is to remove the scratch(s). I bought a kit on-line to remove a scratch from a mirror (never used it). Like sanding wood, you start with larger grits to sand (in this case, buff) out the scratch, then progressively smaller grits to buff out the scratches from the previous grit size. Each time, the area you are buffing grows larger. With the glass kit I got, the final step uses a cotton bob on your power drill, and cerium powder for the final polishing step to get that glass-smooth finish.

I'm sure it can be done, (they grind and polish lenses, so you could take out scratches) but I'm not sure it would be worth the effort.

The other thing I worry about; if you are grinding/polishing away some of the glass to remove the scratch, the finished surface will be smooth, but will it be optically flat? Or will you get some distortion looking through it?

Good luck. Let us know if you learn anything more.

Finally,

[Glove]

One of my 1st jobs was replacing glass on automobiles. The guy who trained me had this pink colored jewelers rouge on a buffing pad with a very high speed drill. I don’t recall the brand of rouge, and I cant tell ya where to find a buffing pad like he had. I can tell ya we removed some nasty marks in glass.

It is possible to buff scratches from glass with the right compound, pad and speed. It’s a little messy though.

[FishTri]

How long did it take to buff out a scratch?

[Stixbaraca]

...good luck!

[Glove]

We spent a couple hours on one windshield that had horrible wiper arm gouges. couldnt get em all but it was much better.