Community Forums

Moder2 · 10-10-2006, 11:26 AM

Help!

We bought our 01 winnie a couple months ago. All the glass is severly waterspotted and at the time I just figured it was laziness of the dealer and they would just clean up. Boy was I wrong.

Apprently these spots are from acid rain, or somehting at has "Etched" themselves in the glass. Now I can rub them out with ultra fine steel wool and some heavy rubbing compund but it is an aweful lot of work. I got out the polisher and it works alittle better, but not much.

Does ANYONE have any experience with this problem? Can someone recomend a polish that works better, or is designed for this problem?

Thanks!

John

Moder2 · 10-10-2006, 11:26 AM

Help!

We bought our 01 winnie a couple months ago. All the glass is severly waterspotted and at the time I just figured it was laziness of the dealer and they would just clean up. Boy was I wrong.

Apprently these spots are from acid rain, or somehting at has "Etched" themselves in the glass. Now I can rub them out with ultra fine steel wool and some heavy rubbing compund but it is an aweful lot of work. I got out the polisher and it works alittle better, but not much.

Does ANYONE have any experience with this problem? Can someone recomend a polish that works better, or is designed for this problem?

Thanks!

John

Tom N · 10-10-2006, 03:13 PM

Wow, first I've heard of anything like this.

Can you contact the previous owner and ask him??

The most common chemical that will etch glass is hydrofluoric acid (HF) and acid rain does not contain HF.

Moder2 · 10-10-2006, 04:25 PM

Well, we got it from a dealer in NC. Now my salesman has left the company...

I could be wrong about it being etched in the glass, but I did try several "Mineral" type removers with no avail (CLR, ssome other off brands, straight vinegar, and even tried a drain cleaner, thinking somehting very base would take it off). All to no avail.

Derek then found a news article about etched glass, and said to try fine steel wool. It worked kinda, but along with rubbing compund it worked a bit better. It took my over 3 hours to do 1/2 of one window. So I tried a polisher with rubbing compound, and it was a tad faster, but almost as much work.

Maybe I'll try a glass company next and see what they have to say...

Tom N · 10-10-2006, 04:36 PM

If you were here you could get someone from PPG research to look at it. I have a couple buddies that work there.

Bill Gotthelf · 10-10-2006, 04:44 PM

Definatly check with a glass company. There are polishing compounds that they use that take the haze off of old windshields. You must have a polisher that will spin over 2000 rpm's though. Most vari speed drills won't go that high.

bldrbob · 10-10-2006, 05:50 PM

I think a cleaner like TSP will etch glass.Maybe the previous owner or someone used it to clean the coach.

BOB

al koffman · 10-10-2006, 07:29 PM

Have you tried a razor blade scraper?

Joe-K · 10-10-2006, 08:16 PM

I've also got water spots visible on some of my darkened side windows. I thought they were from the minerals in the water drying on the glass. I've not found anything to remove them either.

I'm thinking of trying one of the deionizing water filters to see if I can wash the rig spot free.

Cruzer · 10-10-2006, 09:13 PM

I used to have the water spot issues after washing, particularly on the tinted glass. The tinted glass gets so hot that it cooks the water drops before you get a chance to wipe them off and the mineral deposits boil out and form the spots. The bigger the motorhome, the harder it is to keep up.

I read on the information on Mother's Chrome Polish and it was stated to work on glass. They're right! I have always used the Mother's Chrome Polish on chrome. It's one of those fine polishes that just doesn't scratch anything, yet is just abrasive enough to clean things. I used it on the tinted glass and the water spots just come right off. Plus it doesn't leave any film or waxy buildup on the windows. All you get is just plain clean glass.

Joe-K · 10-10-2006, 10:56 PM

I'm going to get Mothers

working on the windows tonight. Did you hand polish the glass or use a buffer?

Moder2 · 10-11-2006, 12:22 AM

Thanks for the tip Cruzer.

I tried Mother's. It has a much better effect than the other products I was using, however it is still a bunch of work. So, I tried it with my polisher, and it was good enough that I could get along with it if I had to, but still a slow and cumbersom process.

I stopped at a Glass Shop here in Tampa. They handed me a small bottle of a product called "Sparkle" No, Not the purple glass cleaner that dosen't work on normal glass. It has the consistencey of really runny liquid wax. Wiped it on, and it hazes really quick, and wipe it off. It comes off almost like sanding drywall compund (that much dust anyhow). It is definatly the BEST glass cleaner I have used, and it did have some effect on the spots. So I tried it again with my 0000 Steel wool. Let it haze, and Viola! It worked!

It cost about $8.00 for a 7 oz. bottle. The worst part is the cleanup of all the white dust.

For good measure I then cleaned the dust off, and cleaned them again with a regular glasscleaner (mostly to get the white dust out of the window tracks). Finished with a couple coats of RainX, hopefully this won't happen again.

Thanks for your help!

John

rogueii · 10-11-2006, 01:48 AM

I have the same problem on the front side windows, where the roof run off drips down the window, it left a streak, that none of the cleaners would remove.
(I have now added the gutter extentions) which keeps the water off the windows.
A service tech at National RV told me to use Trible 0 steel wool (000). it worked, but it is a lot of work.

Do you have a name for the product you picked up in Tampa at the glass shop?

Cruzer · 10-11-2006, 02:17 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Joe-K:
I'm going to get Mothers

working on the windows tonight. Did you hand polish the glass or use a buffer? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

It didn't take hardly any effort. I'v used a cotton/paper glass towel product as well as terry cloth or tee shirt towels. All work equally well. I just wiped it on by hand, then rubbed it off. No machine work needed.