Glass Restoration

Glass restoration is a process using chemicals and techniques to restore the surface of the glass to near new. Many times it's possible to restore glass saving hundreds if not thousands of dollars replacing it. Glass restoration can polish out scratches, mineral build up, and light hazing on surfaces.

I started glass restoration services nearly 15 years ago with a random orbit sander and white 3M scrub pads. With this set up, I could polish out mineral buildup and very light hazing on a window surface and get the window back to an acceptable level, but it was laborious. Then it hit, or rather, “they” hit. Over the coarse of a few days, dozens of downtown windows got tagged. This wasn’t the regular paint graffiti that is so prevalent. This was actually the scratching of the graffiti tag into the window surface. It normally would have required glass replacement with costs in the thousands of dollars.

I had begun to hear through the industry about techniques and equipment that would remove scratches from glass and after a few inquiries from my window cleaning clients I decided to look into it. I knew glass-manufacturing factories had equipment for this purpose, but it had yet to be adapted for use out in the streets. I also learned about some equipment had been developed for the auto industry for polishing out windshield wiper rub – you know the big arc that can occur on your windshield due to damaged or missing rubber blades?

The hunt was on... I did find a system that was just out of testing, purchased it and went to work on the new downtown library. That is were it started and now after 15 years, hundreds of successfully polished windows, while going through a number of systems and equipment and always improving upon them with my own inventions I must admit I am something of a 'pro' but still learning and adapting to find the ultimate solution for each unique project.

The vast majority of the glass restoration that I have done has been here in Spokane, WA but when you have the time ask me about standing in 12” deep water in the three fish ladders at Rock Island Dam over by Wenatchee. ... it’s a cool story.

Suffice it to say as I wrap this up, we can remove scratches, hazing, chemicals or damage from glass using glass restoration techniques.