Need Help What a FAIL. Glass door all scretched up. Anything to fix it?

[Pat Whatley]

All I'm gong to say is that paste car wax, like Turtle Wax, can do amazing things.

 

[T_K]

In our quotes, when quoting glass windows or doors, we have a line item which simply states ALL glass must be cleaned by others. We are not responsible for any cleaning, except for a final cleaning of an alcohol wash. As a matter of fact, we have a similar line item for doing just about any work on anything which does not originate in our shop.

In the glass installs I've done, we never had specific text in the quote/contract/invoice about this. We just cleaned the area necessary to apply the vinyl and moved on. Never had complaints about us not cleaning the rest of the window. But I could always tell who never cleaned their windows. I'd come back months later and the install area was still highly visible because of the dirt caked on around it.

 

[Gino]

In the glass installs I've done, we never had specific text in the quote/contract/invoice about this. We just cleaned the area necessary to apply the vinyl and moved on. Never had complaints about us not cleaning the rest of the window. But I could always tell who never cleaned their windows. I'd come back months later and the install area was still highly visible because of the dirt caked on around it.

Consider yourself lucky. Over the years we developed these line items to protect ourselves from possible nightmares.

I've gotten to jobs, which I quoted to take X amount of time and spent an hour or more cleaning the tape, gum and other crap people have put on the glass over time. Paint splatters, bug nests in the corners and just plain filth. Same goes for a vehicle or anything in which the customer supplies the substrate to be lettered. When I quote lettering a truck, I do not include washing it down, taking off road grease or anything else. A quick wash, dry and final alcohol wash..... that's all. Now, if something takes an extra few minutes, no problem, but it's in there to protect us.

We did a truck last week, that when you looked at the truck from a distance, it looked like we spray painted white blobs on the truck everywhere we lettered it, cause the rest of the truck looked dull grey and that's no lie. I charged them an extra $140.00 for cleaning it, as they did not do as the quote required.

This is what they all say......

Vehicles must be washed by your company before bringing them in for lettering or graphic installations. Failure to wash the vehicle by your company will add...​

 

[TammieH]

This from the Internet >>>

Cerium Oxide can be used to remove superficial surface scratches from glass surfaces. May also be used to remove water stains from showers and windows. As a general rule, if you run your fingernail across the scratch and it snags your nail, the scratch is too deep to be removed by cerium oxide.Mar 15, 2013

Perhaps see if you can find a professional to buff out the scratches

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

Consider yourself lucky. Over the years we developed these line items to protect ourselves from possible nightmares.

I've gotten to jobs, which I quoted to take X amount of time and spent an hour or more cleaning the tape, gum and other crap people have put on the glass over time. Paint splatters, bug nests in the corners and just plain filth. Same goes for a vehicle or anything in which the customer supplies the substrate to be lettered. When I quote lettering a truck, I do not include washing it down, taking off road grease or anything else. A quick wash, dry and final alcohol wash..... that's all. Now, if something takes an extra few minutes, no problem, but it's in there to protect us.

We did a truck last week, that when you looked at the truck from a distance, it looked like we spray painted white blobs on the truck everywhere we lettered it, cause the rest of the truck looked dull grey and that's no lie. I charged them an extra $140.00 for cleaning it, as they did not do as the quote required.

This is what they all say......

Vehicles must be washed by your company before bringing them in for lettering or graphic installations. Failure to wash the vehicle by your company will add...​

I thought scraping the crap and cleaning the bug nests off windows was part of the job.. at least that's what I figure in. Only time I add $$ is when there is lettering or paint ot be removed.

 

[Gino]

Think about it. A major component of any business, not just in signs but any business..... is consistency.

If you don't charge for things other than lettering, they can and have the right to expect you to do just about anything, if you don't explain your policies, first. I'm not a window cleaner. I'm not a car wash. I letter things. Things that are clean and ready to go, like metal, glass, wood, aluminum, poly and so on. Oh, what's that, you want it painted a particular color ?? That will be $$XX.XX more. Oh, you want to supply me with the metal ?? It can't be rusty, bent, bowed or all scratched up, unless that's the finish you want. I will need to put extra time in...... that was not included when I quoted lettering only. Oh, you want me to be an exterminator and get rid of those pesky wasps who have 5 nests up at the top of the window ?? I'll hafta make an extra trip to make sure they're all dead. Can't have those little buggers flying around my head when I'm trying to concentrate on centering your copy.

If you wanna be Mr Nice guy, go right ahead, but if I quoted $450 to letter a window and I have 4 to do that day, that's $1,800 I should make considering some drive time. Now, when I get to window 1 and I hafta spend an extra 35 minutes, my day is longer. Take that times all four and I might not get to the last window and now I don't get my required quota in for the day. Now, I come up short. Whose fault is that ?? The guy who got you to do more than you quoted.

And I always make the cleaning stuff a much higher price, cause we're highly skilled and talented artists and get paid dearly for our time. When they ask me if I'm serious about that, I tell them, yep, I sure am.​

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

I guess I could never see myself trying to get a few extra bucks from a customer after I have a deal and before I install their product. "Hey I'm here to install but now I need $20 extra dollars a window cause I have to clean it, otherwise your SOL" . seems distasteful....but then again, I started this business because I knew I could have friendlier policies and that would help me succeed over my competition.

 

[Gino]

Good luck with that.............

 

[Bly]

Yep. Find out if there's anything to remove and charge for it.
Time is money.
Get a quote from any installation contractor and that's one of the first things they ask.

 

[ams]

I didn't think you could scratch glass. I've cut glass with a blade hundreds of times and never scratched it.

 

[CSOCSO]

I could never imagine that I could scratch a glass like this. I have cut on glass ( butt joined frosted or cut vinyl on top of glass) and never had any problem And what is really crazy about it that I could not see any of these scratches on the glass once i was done. All (4) glass doors had light scratches and after i finished the install I did call for the manager to point it out that there are light scratches on all of the glasses. Even the ones I did not touch. And while i was showing this to him I was literally touching the glass. We were standing right beside the glass. we did not see these scratches. These look horrible! You can see them 5-6ft away of not 10!!!
How the hell did they appear out of nowhere the next day? If you scratch a paint you will see it immediately. Btw they called me the next day I told them I pointed the scratches out to a manager that day so he knows it wasn't me. Keep in mind on that phone conversation i did not know how bad these scratches were. I thought they were talking about the scratches that was on all the windows and only visible up close. So far I did some other work for them today. The particular manager that i pointed out the light scratches to on the first day did not say anything to me so far. Im think he is confused too because he did not see these scratches that day.

I called my insurance. My deductible is only 500. I do have a guy i know who does impact windows I will ask him how much it would be to replace it or if they could do anything about it. Also emailed that ipsglass people.



On the side note: I installed some window tint in their gym windows and I used a brand new blade and used the soapy water and it stilled scuffed the crap out of the glass. That was only visible after i put the tint on it. I guess i will never touch a glass again with any metal
And i did had to clean it bad because there were a TON of overspray

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

OMG, your having the worst luck there. Something is very wrong with the glass.

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

Yep. Find out if there's anything to remove and charge for it.
Time is money.
Get a quote from any installation contractor and that's one of the first things they ask.

I agree with adding $$ for vinyl and paint to be removed

 

[ikarasu]

On the side note: I installed some window tint in their gym windows and I used a brand new blade and used the soapy water and it stilled scuffed the crap out of the glass. That was only visible after i put the tint on it. I guess i will never touch a glass again with any metal
And i did had to clean it bad because there were a TON of overspray

We always cut/scrape directly on glass... usually car windows, etc. Now you have me worried... We do have a ton of plastic scrapers that we use for car decal removals, but the metal scrapers are always easiest on glass....

https://www.amazon.com/CARLAS-Stick...83726&sr=8-2&keywords=plastic+sticker+remover

These work really good for removal, and even just scraping a vehicle down to make sure no dust particles are sticking... I wouldnt touch another one of their windows with anything else.

 

[ikarasu]

And I always make the cleaning stuff a much higher price, cause we're highly skilled and talented artists and get paid dearly for our time. When they ask me if I'm serious about that, I tell them, yep, I sure am.​

We charge for decal removal, but usually we bake the cleaning into the quote. If they bring in a vehicle drenched in mud... we charge them extra.

We actually prefer they dont wash it themselves though... 9 times out of 10 they will goto an automatic wash and have it spray wax and everything on it. We just had a real estate customer do that, and our vinyl was having a hard time sticking to the car. We spent more time, and wasted a lot of rapid tac/degreaser getting all the wax off the vehicle so the decals would stick. It probably cost us more in man hours than it would have to spray on some alcohol and squeegee it all off.

 

[Dallas225]

So it doesn't seem that anyone knows that tempered glass has good side and a bad side (for using a razor blade). It all depends on the glass manufacturer and their kiln. When the glass goes through the tempering process it goes back into the kiln to get baked again and then a quick high pressure cooling, and in this cooling process if the kiln isn't completely clean dust particles settle on the top side of the glass and get baked into the surface of the glass.. in turn you would have 1 smooth side (the bottom) and 1 "rough" side (the top). While the bottom side is smooth, using a razor blade on it will do no harm but on the rough side it will leave the scratches every time. We see it every day, being a specialized 3m authorized solar and security film dealer; applying materials to glass is what we do.

Now in saying this, not all glass manufacturers' tempered glass will have this issue. We have one manufacturer here (not going to name name's) and it is every single piece of tempered glass has the rough side and can't have a razor put on it but we've had glass from other manufacturers and have never had an issue with either side.

It will also depend on the type of glass as well; there is 3 types. Straight annealed (breaks into large shards), heat-strengthened (breaks into larger shards but has a greater chance of staying together), and tempered (breaks into small cubes). Annealed will never scratch with using a razor blade, heat-strengthened and tempered are dependent on the manufacturer.

As far as which type of razor blade to use, some people here have said that stainless steel blade won't scratch - that is false. It is dependent on the blade itself. We use the triumph blades and we use the carbon blades because they have a smaller chance to scratch glass than the stainless triumph blades.

And by looking at the photo, those definitely look like scratches from the razor blade. I would always use some sort of slip solution on the glass with the blade as it will help to reduce the risk of cause scratches. Sorry to break it to you but those are definitely scratches from the razor blade.

Chaz

You are bang on. We are a 3m solar security dealer as well and the bad side of glass drives me nuts. Your write up was perfect, if I wouldn’t have read this I would have said something very similar. I agree, the razor blade he used caused the scratches. Even if it was new, if it was the soft side it would have scratched it anyways.


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[CSOCSO]

Isnt the soft side supposed to be inside? Did they install the glass wrong?

You are bang on. We are a 3m solar security dealer as well and the bad side of glass drives me nuts. Your write up was perfect, if I wouldn’t have read this I would have said something very similar. I agree, the razor blade he used caused the scratches. Even if it was new, if it was the soft side it would have scratched it anyways.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[pupsgear]

I used an old (not rusty crazy old, just not totally fresh) blade and dry scraped off letters. After I got the vinyl off I used brake cleaner to get the adhesive off but still... I didn't scratch glass.

Maybe rust can build up on a blade and become harder then glass?? Was your blade chipped or broken? That could cause it.

Thank you for the heads up on the break clean for cleaning residue

 

[privacyfilms]

Here are your options. Replace the glass or hire a professional who uses the Glass Renu Scratch Removal System. There is absolutely no way any paste will remove those scratches. The glass will need to be grinded, buffed and then feathered out for a distortion free look.

Anyone who believes that glass can't be scratched will learn the hard way. During the manufacturing process there are glass infused particles on the surface of the glass called fabrication debris. These particles can easily be picked up while cleaning glass using a scraper blade. Glass scratches glass.

FYI. I know this because the first business I started was a glass restoration company.

 

[Jester1167]

You probably didn't see it because the sun wasn't shining at the right angle.

A glass guy taught me that most of the scratches happen on the back stroke. You end up dragging sand and dirt across the glass. On the forward stroke it goes above the blade. In the future make sure you only use stainless steel blades, high carbon blades will scratch easily.

Before you have it replaced, double check and make sure that the scratches aren't on a layer of tint.