Awright, Let's Clear Up This Diamondite Business

S

Setec Astronomy

Well-known member
I drove my friend Jr's car the other night and holy crap her windshield is all swirled! Bad in the oncoming headlights. I guess it's from using the wipers a lot in the winter with all that grit from the road.



I knew she had some wiper tracks and I had bought some of the Zaino glass polish which is supposed to remove "light scratches" but haven't got around to using it yet (using up my 20 yo EO Glass Polish :o ). I just felt the Zaino between my fingers and it seems to have some grit in it, but I have been eyeing up the Diamondite page at Autogeek.



There are the Lake Country glass cutting pads and the Diamondite Glass Resurfacing Creme...don't know if you really need to use these together or if they really are going to do anything...and whether you really need a rotary or can use a PC.



I searched and got some mixed answers. Anyone have a yea or nay on this method? Also: If you are using these glass polishes which have really hard abrasives (which I presume includes the Zaino), do you need to dedicate foam pads to this duty for fear the abrasive bits won't wash out and cause paint marring?



I've been under the assumption that you really can't get anything out of glass without distorting it, but then there's the whole Diamondite page...
 
Here's a post I made a while ago about this very subject (though not this system in particular).



Holden_C04 said:
If this gives you any indication, I have had a long scratch on my windshield for well over a year with no or minimal reduction in its appearance. The problem is that glass is much, much harder than paint and requires different compounds in order to work. As well, glass polishers will use felt pads with special polishers that supply lubricant in the form of water to the area being polished. In that context, it's easy to see why a polishing pad and a finishing polish are ineffective.



Here is how a professional glass polisher would remove a defect such as a deep scratch:



YouTube - Scratch Removal From A Car Window
Click to expand...
 
Well, Holden, what I got out of watching that is that the Diamondite isn't going to work, really...since they don't have a compound and a polish, nor cutting and finishing pads....you probably can't remove enough material with the Diamondite to do anything...like trying to take a deep scratch out of paint with only a fine polish and soft pad.



For those of you who didn't watch Holden's linked video, they had a scratched window and first used and agressive machine/compound which hazed the glass, then went back with a finer combo to restore the gloss.



Thanks guys. Still waiting to hear some Diamondite/LC Glass Cutting pad success stories.
 
I had leased an Infiniti G35x that had scratches in the windshield from the wiper blade going bad. I bought the Diamondite glass repair kit for machine application. I had my brother come over with his Dewalt rotary to try and get the scratches out. In the handbook it said if using a rotary, use 1000 rpm. We found you had to use higher rpm and then it started working. Glass got really hot though. I was satisfied with the results. It was very noticeable before, but now you wouldn't be able to tell unless I showed you were they were. We got about 97% of the scratches out. You couldn't see anything from the outside, but looking from the inside you could still see just a trace of the scratch, but nothing compared to what it was before. Hope this helps. Have a happy Thanksgiving!
 
David Fermani said:
I'm not sure how the Diamondite system works, but I've seen deep gouges (one's you can sink your thumb nail into) come completely out with any distortion. Here's 1 system that Pro glass people use:

Glass Scratch Removal and Glass Scratch Repair
Click to expand...



Since I was ordering from Autogeek anyway, I threw in some of the Diamondite compound and LC glass cutting pads to give a try (based on what the last poster reported), expecting that they wouldn't work and I'd wind up with the sanding discs from Glass Technology.



In the meantime, I called Glass Tech to ask if I needed to finish up with some sort of pad/compound like they do in their pro setup. I was told no, that the white sanding disc created it's own compound when combined with water. I went on to ask about the choice of disc size, which the phone tech told me depended on the scratch length, because they didn't want me sanding areas larger than the scratch. When I told him that it was basically the whole windshield that was "swirled", he balked and said he didn't recommend doing more than 50 or 60% of any "piece of glass you have to see through" because of distortions.



So it looks like I'll be giving the Diamondite a try first.
 
I've got the Diamondite paste. I used it once, by Cyclo with the Orange pads. The passenger side of my windshield has some "swirls" that you can usually only notice at night, but it's pretty annoying.



It basically had no effect on the scratches, as far as I can tell. I plan to try it again by rotary, but I'm not sure which pad to use. I'll probably try a LC light cutting pad.
 
percynjpn said:
I've got the Diamondite paste. I used it once, by Cyclo with the Orange pads. The passenger side of my windshield has some "swirls" that you can usually only notice at night, but it's pretty annoying.



It basically had no effect on the scratches, as far as I can tell. I plan to try it again by rotary, but I'm not sure which pad to use. I'll probably try a LC light cutting pad.
Click to expand...



I'm sure you need to have a glass polishing pad in order for it to work. I have purchased a Lake County 5.5" or so in size glass polishing pad and plan on using it with my Makita and the Diamondite Glass Resurfacing Creme. I'll report back when I get to using it...
 
I'm not really holding out much hope that anything short of the "sandpaper" approach is going to work, even with one of those LC glass leveling pads on a rotary. Most of what I'm dealing with are "swirls" which are pretty shallow, so I'm not sure what kind of distortion might occur from the "sanding", because I won't be dwelling in one area as the Glass Tech guy was suggesting for scratch removal.
 
Setec Astronomy said:
There are the Lake Country glass cutting pads and the Diamondite Glass Resurfacing Creme...don't know if you really need to use these together or if they really are going to do anything...and whether you really need a rotary or can use a PC.



I searched and got some mixed answers. Anyone have a yea or nay on this method?
Click to expand...



So, any update? I am considering trying this product (Diamondite Glass Resurfacing Creme) along with the LC glass cutting pad.



Regards,



Rich
 
No update..I thought I would get to this one winter evening, however, your timing is impeccable because just last night I was saying I gotta do this!
 
I haven't used the Diamondite kit but I did use a glass polishing kit from JC Whitney (Eastmans have one too) to remove some nasty scratches from the wife's windshield. Typical wiper arm scratches.

The cerium oxide slurrey and felt wheel mandrel chucked into a power drill worked amazingly well, getting out all the scratches. It took an hour and a half, maybe a bit longer but try as I may, I coldn't see any perceptable distortion at all.

Yup, old thread.
 
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