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Re: Review: Griots Fine Glass Polish - How to remove water spots and road film off car glass
Two methods to polish glass
There are two ways to polish glass to remove water spots and road film off the glass surface.
By hand
Most of you reading this own a hand or two so this is fairly affordable once you get the Griot's Fine Glass Polish.
By machine
Some of you may already own a Griot's 6" DA Orbital Polisher, after reading this article if you don't there's a link that goes to the Autogeek.com store website where you can get one. Take my word for it not only is machine polishing your glass faster and easier on you it also does a better job than you and your wimpy human hand will ever do.
Besides that... you can also use it to compound, polish and wax your car's paint. And the machine will also do a much better job than your hand will ever do. I'm lazy by nature so ANY time I can do something by machine that's the path I'm going to travel. That said, below I'll show you how to use the Griot's Fine Glass Polish by machine and also by hand.
Two approaches for polishing glass
Besides working either by hand or machine or a combination of both, there are also two approaches to doing this type of work.
Polish glass after washing
I think this is the way people automatically think this type of work is supposed to be done. Truth is there are no rules that state the order in which you detail your car. Here's what I know from experience and from machine polishing glass for years in Oregon where all car glass has water spots and road film and that is glass polishing is messy. That's right, it's very messy. You're going to splatter the glass polish all over the place and especially around the window frame where most cars have some form of rubber or vinyl gasket that the glass is sandwiched in-between. Some cars even have what are called fuzzy gaskets on the lower horizontal portion of the window frame. You don't want to scrub these as you can tear up the fuzzy material. If you want to polish the glass after washing or on a clean car then my best advice to you is to get some painter's tape and cover all the gaskets around the perimeter of the glass window to prevent them from getting polish spatter and also saving you from having to clean up the mess after the fact.
Polish glass before washing
Now this is how you do it. Before you wash the car, polish the glass. Either by hand or machine. The benefit is after you polish the glass you can simply wash the car and at the same time wash all of the polish residue off the glass and out of the perimeter of the window frame as well as any splatter of any adjacent panel.
This is the approach I show when we cover Production Detailing (for money), at our 3-day Competition Ready Detailing Classes.
Read the directions
The below process is the correct order of steps as recommended by Griot's under the directions listed on the label of the Fine Glass Polish. Often time when something doesn't work they way it's intended it's due to operator error and the error starts from not reading the directions.
Here's our victim, err I mean our demo car.
Here's everything I need to do the process according to Griot's.
Step 1: Remove loose dirt with Griot's Window Cleaner and a clean microfiber towel
The point and importance of this step is so that you don't grind any loose dirt into the glass. This is an especially important step if you choose to machine polish the glass BEFORE washing the car as I'm showing here.
Step 2: Remove bonded contaminants with Griot's Glass Cleaning Clay
Kind of like removing bonded contaminants off paint before machine compounding or polishing paint.
Something black and icky is coming off the glass and remember... this is after I wiped off all the loose dirt.
Step 3: Shake the Griot's Glass Polish well before use
It's also a good idea to shake this product as you work around the car. The idea being to keep the glass-safe abrasives in a uniform suspension in the bottle, i.e. no settling out.
Step 4: Apply some Griot's Fine Glass Polish onto a Griot's 6" Glass Polishing Pad
Then place the pad against the glass BEFORE turning the polisher on.
After the pad is flat against the glass turn the polisher on and start making overlapping passes using a crosshatch pattern.
If possible, pull the wiper arm away from the windshield
Question: How long to buff?
Answer: No simple answer. It depends on how badly and how long the water spots and road film have been building up on the glass.
Typically it will take a minimum of around 8 section passes and possibly more.
After finishing one side of the windshield move to the other side of the car and continue until the entire windshield is polished.
Continue moving around the car machine polishing the glass. If you're not sure whether or not you have removed all the water spots or road film simply wipe the glass clean and inspect.
3" pads and 3" HD Backing Plate
For getting into corner windows or around side mirrors, Griot's offers a 3" HD Backing Plate and a 3" Glass Polishing Pad. Swap the smaller backing plate onto your Griot's 6" DA Polisher and you'll be ready to machine polish.
You can read my review about the Griot's 3" HD Backing Plate here,
Griot's Garage 3" BOSS HD Orbital Backing Plate
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Re: Review: Griots Fine Glass Polish - How to remove water spots and road film off car glass
Continued....
Review and comments....
Review
This is Griot's new FINE Glass Polish and perfect for both regular maintenance for daily drivers to keep the glass perfectly clean and clear at all times and for also undoing light build up of water spots and road film. I would say that the build-up of water spots and road film on the glass on this car pushed this product to its limits. It worked fine by hand and machine but if you're working on glass that's worse than what I showed on this car then definitely go for the regular Griot's Glass Polish.
Also, I ran out of time the day I did the work and took the pictures, (the day before Thanksgiving), but as soon as I get a chance I'll apply the Griot's Garage Glass Sealant to finish this project the right way. So watch for that review.
Comments
When machine polishing with a hard backing plate and a glass polishing pad which is thin, the combination of these two things works but here's a tip to make it easier on you... place a Griot's Innerflex pad between the backing plate and the glass polishing pads and this will provide some cushion to enable the hard glass polishing pad to conform to curved glass. It's not a deal breaker to not have and use their Innerflex pads I'm just saying from experience, it helps. Let your budget be our guide.
Final comment...
Growing up in Oregon and detailing hundreds if not thousands of cars, you get real good at polishing glass because it rains a lot in Oregon and as such, most cars have water spots on the paint and on the glass and you can't detail a car and return it to the customer with shiny paint but with water spots still on the glass. So I honed my skills early on in Oregon and learned the value of machine polishing the glass BEFORE washing the car to both speed up the process and reduce the mess and the labor needed for wiping glass. I always polish glass before washing and teach the same in our classes here at Autogeek.
On Autogeek.com
Griot's Garage Glass Sealant 8 oz
Griots Garage Glass Polish
All Griot's products including Innerflex pads
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Re: Review: Griots Fine Glass Polish - How to remove water spots and road film off car glass
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Re: Review: Griots Fine Glass Polish - How to remove water spots and road film off car glass
Thanks for the tips. I realize this is a GG Polish tip, but I have found that a chemical water spot remover (e.g. CarPro Spotless) can sometimes remove water spots faster and easier than using a polish. I use Wolfgang Perfekt Polish to remove road grime. It always amazes me to see dirt on my pad after polishing a "clean" windshield.
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Super Member
Re: Review: Griots Fine Glass Polish - How to remove water spots and road film off car glass
Mike awesome article as always, and very timely as Thursday I am expecting a few bottles of McKees 37 High Performance Glass Restorer Polish that I ordered Monday. Different product than you reviewed here, but same process.
Thanks again!
ScottH
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Re: Review: Griots Fine Glass Polish - How to remove water spots and road film off car glass
Originally Posted by rlmccarty2000
Thanks for the tips. I realize this is a GG Polish tip, but I have found that a chemical water spot remover (e.g. CarPro Spotless) can sometimes remove water spots faster and easier than using a polish.
I would agree and the key word being sometimes.
The water spots or water drizzle stains together with the road film on the glass of this car were stuck on the glass pretty good. I've used most of the popular chemical water spot removers and the key word is sometimes they work.
What I've also noticed however is even when they do work and remove the water spots, nothing compares to machine polishing glass to get it clean, clear and shiny like you can do with paint. Plus what I've always seen after chemically removing water spots is there's always the stubborn imprints left on the glass and it's a lot faster to remove these via machine polishing then using elbow grease with a chemical.
After years of buffing out glass in Oregon I'm pretty confident that the best results come from either a combination of chemical followed by mechanical. And for sure... do the machine polishing of the glass BEFORE washing the car.
If I could only choose one method then I'd choose the mechanical option as in machine polishing because I know whatever is on the glass, it's coming off.
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Re: Review: Griots Fine Glass Polish - How to remove water spots and road film off car glass
Hi Mike,
What's the advisability of using a foam or microfiber pad with this product rather than the glass pads?
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Re: Review: Griots Fine Glass Polish - How to remove water spots and road film off car glass
Originally Posted by Setec Astronomy
Hi Mike,
What's the advisability of using a foam or microfiber pad with this product rather than the glass pads?
My guess and my experience is there's no down side. The majority of time when I work with various manufacturers products I stay on message. An old habit I learned from Meguiar's. It means, stay on the company's message not Mike Phillips message.
I shared the new Fine Glass Polish as Griot's recommends. That's staying on message.
My experience is the only time you need the flat, hard felt glass polishing pads is when you're using a Cerium Oxide based glass polish to remove scratches OUT of glass.
But Griot's recommends these pads with the Glass Polish and their Fine Glass Polish so that's what I used.
My experience is that as long as the abrasive technology being used is in fact glass-safe, then pad doesn't matter except for aggressiveness and speed.
Most the time when I'm removing water spots and road film off glass I'll either use a thin, sharp foam cutting pad on an orbital polisher or either a wool or foam cutting pad on a rotary buffer.
Back when I detailed for a living in Oregon I knocked this process out as fast as I could and this meant using either wool or Meguiar's maroon foam cutting pads on my trusty, dusty Makita Rotary Buffer.
My personal RB for over a decade now has been my trusty, dusty Makita, Note how the sand-cast, textured finish on the aluminum head of my Makita Rotary Buffer has been worn smooth after years of buffing. At the end of the day I would usually be bleeding in two places on my hand where it rubbed mostly because I was to dumb or lazy to wear a band-aid, or put some tape on my finger or knuckle where it rubbed.
While I didn't show it but in hindsight I should have... here's a tip I've learned the hard way....
ANYTIME you're buffing on glass, if you've never used the polish or the pad then NEVER test it out on the driver's side of the windshield. Just in case something goes wrong.
Always test on side glass or the passenger side of the windshield.
Don't ask me how I know....
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