Polisher

Thinking about purchasing a cordless polisher for hard water stain removal. Anyone else doing this??

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Ya I just bought one of those for cut ups

Oooooooh pretty

Does it work well?

How much you charge for HW removal?

It helps a lot right @Majestic66 if you know how to use it properly! :wink:

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@Rcombs0882 do not use the wool pad. Purchase a yellow foam pad from a detail supply store or automotive paint store.

Learn to use it properly with the product your using to remove the hard water staining, before using it on a client glass.

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It can range from $5 up to $100 depending on the size of the pane of glass and the severity of the staining.

But that being said I’ve done a ton of hard water stain removal over the last 4 years and I have found that the money rarely is worth the labor involved.

Most customer don’t want to pay the real price needed to be profitable for us.

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I’ve attempted it once and it didn’t work out. How do you remove the stains? A chemical on the glass then polish till they’re gone?

No I did not use chemicals, but I have tried them and for the minerals in the water here they didn’t work well at all.

I used cerium oxide that work the best. Mr hard water stain has a product that works well also.

The windows came out nice, but not worth what you make off the time involved

There tons of good threads in the search function about process and pricing.

Hope this helps

I no long offer that service.

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Didn’t use it extensively yet , but yes it worked well so far.

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That’s a good point. I hadn’t done a hard water job in so long until this last week. Had to quickly order some supplies and got $565 for a 5 hour job. But I don’t do it as often and I’m more sore from that one job than I am from a week of work.

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I feel you there, for sure.

There is so many easier jobs and glass out there.

That are more profitable.

Then to waste the time with hard water stain removal sevice/add-on.

As a totally stand alone business I see ways to make it profitable but as an add-on , No.

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There’s always more work involved than you think. I did a 4 story resto on a building once, thought that the bottoms were the worst because of the sprinkler systems, bad thinking on my part the whole building all four stories were just as bad. I really ate that job, but ended up getting the job quarterly and I Wfp it in half a day, and make a ton off it, so it was worth the grueling hard water removal. After I do a hwd job on a big building I usually sell them on quarterly or every 4 months cleaning at least, to prevent any hwd from coming back, and I also tell them if it ever does come back, we take care of it for free. It never usually comes back, but if it does it not hard to get off. I also usually seal coat the glass after hwd removal. Makes my job so much easier when I come back.

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That’s proper process once “all” staining is removed.

I’ve come across many HWS jobs that the person never sealed the glass and did a horrible job of removing the staining and the glass was not restoreable, without total restoration.

Because if you open up those pores in the glass and don’t seal it the HWS comes back with a vengeance.

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You are right…and sometimes you can replace the glass cheaper than repairing it. I’ve had good luck with One Restore, but if the stains have been on the glass for and extended period it etches the glass permanently, I had one so bad I couldn’t even fix it with GlassRenu system.

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I remember you posting about that job.

Sometimes it’s just more cost effective to replace the glass.

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Heat, flatness, friction, product, speed. All of these are critically important. I have developed (others have too) what I call a float/spin system. A simple universal joint will keep the pad totally flat on the glass at all times. For really tough stains a two part technique works best. First a silicon carbide based abrasive product to remove the stain. Then the perfect white haze is removed by a cerium. RPMs are critical along with flatness to maintain the heat and friction. But I am NOT the expert here. There are others out there that know way more than me. These people will lead the restoration industry. And they have their own systems which they built themselves.

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The posts in this thread are excellent. Especially about sealing the glass. And completely removing the stain before applying the sealant. Further not all sealants are of equal quality. I am now looking at a product that is based on what is a true Self Assembling Monolayer. There will be a write up on it in the Glass Smart Product Review. I am in negotiations with them right now. Maybe the Lambrinides will carry it. Dunno.

Henry

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