Flex 3401 glass polish

[ncgolfguy]

I am going to be using my flex 3401 to do some glass polishing. I have a 5 inch carpro rayon glass polishing pad. Which backing plate should I use on my machine?

[haris300]

You may have to get your hands on the mini 4 3/8" backing plate. A good investment if you want to use 5 inch pads. From my experience, the rayon pads work best with rotary if you're trying to remove defects from glass. If you're just trying to clean up water spots or something along those lines then DA should be no problem.

[ncgolfguy]

Yeah it's nothing deep just light scratches that I induced. This is fine scratches that I put in using the flex and griots garage glass polishing pads. I think I let my polish get to dry and I actually put these fine scratches on the side and back glass on my Tahoe😩. I now have car Ceriglass and Carpro rayon pads. I will definitely be sure to keep it wet this time!

[Mike Phillips]

I would second the recommendation from Harris.

For a 5" CarPro Rayon Glass Polishing pad get the 4 3/8" FLEX backing plate.

I'd also recommend getting a 5" interface pad, the Griot's Garage "Interflex" pad should work.

The reason why is because glass polishing pads are thin and hard. Backing plates are hard. Most windshields are curved. With a hard surface backing plate and a hard pad the experience is not smooth and in most cases you're going to be buffing for hours since glass is also very hard.

A foam interface will provide a little cushion and also allow the rayon pad to curve or conform to the curve of the class enabling full contact between pad and glass and just about as important, make the buffing process smoother, feel better and be easier on you.


I just took pictures of wiper scratches in a Toyota Camry this morning. Haven't looked to see if they came out but that's coming up shortly.

I'm writing a brand new article on glass polishing so I can test out all of the above and let you know how it goes.

[Mike Phillips]

Here's a tip...


When polishing glass, I practice and teach,

The Buddy System


The Buddy System is simply have a buddy with you, this can be a girlfriend, wife, son, daughter of a "buddy", and as you're doing the polishing have them be standing nearby and ready to mist on some water.

Glass polishes, at least all the glass polishes I've used are water based and as you're buffing, the heat generated plus normal water evaporation, tends to make the polish dry up fairly quickly.

If you don't have a buddy to mist water onto the glass as you're buffing you have to do one of two things,

1. Stop buffing, mist on some water, start buffing again. This can include turning the buffer of and on as you do this which is awkward and wastes a lot of TIME. The process already takes a lot of time you don't need it to take any longer.

2. Try to mist some water on while holding the buffer against the glass, (usually with it running, can't lift it off you you'll sling splatter everywhere), then after misting water somehow set the water bottle down and go back to buffing but only for about a minute because then you'll need more water misted onto the glass.


Just speaking from experience, when machine polishing glass to remove scratches out of the glass the best method I've found and use and teach is....

The Buddy System


You can read about it here in post #6

Glass polishing - How to remove scratches in glass



Here's the Buddy System in action...





Also, it helps to have a spray bottle of clean water that has a spray that really does a good job of ATOMIZING the water so instead of SQUIRTING water onto the glass which will make a huge mess when you run the glass polishing pad into it instead you spray a FINE MIST of water onto the glass which DRAMATICALLY reduces splatter.

And in case you don't know... glass polishing is really messy.

In my classes I teach doing this BEFORE you wash the car so after you're done polishing the glass you can simply wash the car and thus wash all the splatter off the car.

Otherwise I highly recommend you do a thorough job of covering up the car like I show in this article,


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





And not to knock Facebook but try to find this type of information shared in an easy to read format with pictures that flow and match the text plus formatted text and you simply cannot find it.

[Mike@ShineStruck]

I didn't have any luck with my G21, ceriglass and Griot glass pad..

Borrowed my buddies PE8 , cut down my Griot pad and it took out the scratches
Speed 4 and mist of water every pass


Ordered a pair of carpro glass pads this go around as it may work a few passes quicker with the system..

Haven't tried it with my 3401 yet either

[Mike Phillips]

I didn't have any luck with my G21, ceriglass and Griot glass pad..

I have not tried it with a long throw orbital polisher.

I have used a Porter Cable 7424XP with a 8mm orbit stroke length multiple times successfully. It takes longer with a simple orbital polisher like a PC than it does with a rotary but it's easier on the operator.

Using a rotary buffer means planting your feet securely in order to hold the buffer and thus the pad against a surface that is at an angle and then pushing hard, moving the buffer slowly for a long time.

Neither way is easy and a rotary buffer is definitely a lot faster it's just more muscle intensive.

[ncgolfguy]

Wow! Great information thanks for the help. I will try it out this weekend and let you know how it is going.