Windscreen scratch repair

[88v8]

Stupidly, I picked up a wiper scratch on my unobtainum 56 year old laminated windscreen.
Quite deep, can feel it with my fingernail.

Any experience of having scratches buffed out? I see quite a few companies who claim expertise.

I'm near Gloucester.

Ta very.

[RazerSauber]

I don't have any experience but I did show my local automotive glazier a hairline scratch in my E87 and he couldn't tell me if it would polish out or not.

[Evercross]

I've DIY'd car glass scratch polishing on a couple of occasions and I can tell you (bar that it takes A LOT of time and A LOT of patience as well as being rather messy) that you can get acceptable results on rear and side windows with anything that your fingernail will catch in but anything deeper than a light graze on a windscreen will result in a distorted view through the glass if polished to the point that you cannot see the scratch any more.

If it is somewhere that is not directly in your normal line of vision you might get away with just polishing out the scratch but otherwise you are going to have to skim the entire screen and that would take hours of work and skill to do evenly.

[Riley Blue]

What's the car? Pilkington may be able to supply a replacement: https://www.pilkington.com/en-gb/uk/automotive/cla...

[Driver101]

Rotary polisher, rayon pads and ceriglass can take scratches out glass.

Edited by Driver101 on Thursday 10th October 14:33

[88v8]

Fortunately it's high on the passenger side, but my concern is that it might run if it's not polished out.

Car is a Rambler. Even in the US, not easy to find a screen, let alone someone to fit it.

[Evercross]

88v8 said:

Fortunately it's high on the passenger side, but my concern is that it might run if it's not polished out.

A scratch won't travel (not like a crack). Considering where it is I reckon you could get away with polishing it out.

[talksthetorque]

I did a couple of scratches on mine with this sort of thing.
One was where someone used 1000 grit abrasive roll to get a stubborn bird poo off.
Another was the old "stone stuck in the side window rubber" vertical scratch.
Both ended up considerably better ( as in passed BCA inspection for returning lease cars)
I could still see them.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/GLASS-POLISH-Windscreen-P...

You will need the patience of a saint, some masking tape to mark the area (once you start polishing you can't see where the scratch is) some more patience, a sheet to cover the rest of the car as it flings off well, a water sprayer to keep things cool, and some more patience.

I think I should also point out that you need some patience to do this.

[Glassman]

Riley Blue said:

What's the car? Pilkington may be able to supply a replacement: https://www.pilkington.com/en-gb/uk/automotive/cla...

They don't have the tooling for it. They'll happily make one but you'd need to give them the windscreen you have for them to start making the forma... logistics might also be a problem as the great site they had for classics on the Isle of Sheppey has now been moved to that great hub of glass manufacturing:

Finland.

My recommendation would be to try Glass Doctors but Gloucestershire might be out of David's reach; alternatively:

https://www.glaswelduk.com/scratch-repair-in-GLOUC...