Need a bit of help from people from Australia especially. I have restored about 10 showers so far and had initial success using BKF in the powder form,it worked great but did scratch the glass a bit so I swapped to the BKF cook top cleaner and good success with that too but went to do a shower today and the stains wouldn’t budge,I’m assuming I will now need to use the stronger chemicals,whjat can you guys reccomend to use? advice much appreciated from the Aussie guys as I will need to order in from within Australia…any advice on what to buy and how to use it would be much appreciated,thanks
There are a few products I have used with success, I like to use RCL
to begin with (you should be able to buy at any cleaning supply) then if staining still persists then I would use
https://www.nanovations.com.au/product-catalog/CL-40-abrasive-cleaner-1kg.html
You might have to register on that site to view that product
After I remove the hard water staining I then seal it with
https://www.nanovations.com.au/product-catalog/NG-1010-nanotechnology-glass-coating-1-Litre.html
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Thanks for the reply Steve,
Should I just go straight for the CL 40 and always use that if BKF fails for me? Is there any chance the CL 40 will scratch the glass since it is listed as an abrassive? I already have vitroglaze sorted for the coating afterwards.At the moment I use an orbital sander with the BKF and whilst I know the acid based products work better I am a little hesitant to use them for my own safety as well as customers,my 3 yr old son loves to lick the glass when he showers and this is always in my mind when doing a customers shower and just one reason I wouldn’t feel good if there was even a remote possibility of the acid based ones causing a little harm incase for some reason I hadn’t cleaned up as well as I could have
It self will not scratch the glass.
Depending on what type of pad you have on the sander will determine whether you get any scratches.
Honestly its a shower the acid gets rinsed off with the shower water, but you really should wear a respirator while using it in a confined space.
The sander has a hook and loop pad and to that I attach a non scratch white pad so all good for the pad not scratching,so you think it’s a good idea to just go straight for the CL 40? is that going to out perform the RCL or should I really have all 3 on hand and work my way through BKF,RCL and CL 40 in that order? I also have a chemical respirator and plenty of gloves
Thanks for the replys,much appreciated
I don’t really use BKF, I have used a few times but have found it very effective for the type of staining in my area which is primarily calcium, the phosphoric acid in the RCL breaks down the top layer of calcium, in some instances this is all the build up there is but more often than not the further step is required, often with a polisher.
Here is before and after with using the BKF cook top cleaner,I have now registered with that nannovations site and once accepted I will order some of the CL 40 and ill also get the RCL 70 ill see what kind of price they offer for the coating and see how it compares with what I pay for Vitroglaze
looks good.
I can tell you the prices the CL40 is $38 for 1L and the NG1010 is $212 for 1L
Thanks,for vitro glaze I paid $245 for 5L of the pre cleaner and 1L of the coating so looks to be comparable in price,might look into trying out the NG1010
The Septone product is based on sixty percent phosphoric acid.
I have done some testing of the CL 40. It does make glass hydrophylic when used with a white pad by removing all hydrocarbon pollution. So it should also remove light mineral deposits.
But I need to look at the Vitro Glaze.
Thanx for the info.
Henry
I will definately use the nannovations coating next 1L of it covers 370m2 where as the vitro glaze 1L covers around 100m2 both roughly the same price
just curious @Ozwindowcleaner, what do you charge for this, I am currently charging $99 for a single like 2x1m panel or those 3 tier doors so for both I would be at $198 for an glass L shape shower, I have seen a few sunny coast guys up here in Hervey bay 2hr drive lol
Mainly those goop guys are all over here.
I also offer a comparable service but don’t get much of that type of work.
Part of my research was finding out what the local competition charges,I didn’t really find that many people who do the restoration,I found a marine detailer who offers restoration for boat windows as an add on and a scratch removal company that does glass restoration,they were charging $185 minimum charge to restore glass and $185 for the enduroshield coating,so their price will fluctuate depending on how long it takes them.
This shower I am doing or attempted to do I only charged $120 to restore it and $150 for the coating,I went really cheap as he does a lot of renovations and can reccomend me to all his customers for ones who can’t afford to replace their showers so it was a good opportunity to get onside with him.
Although one mistake I made was quoting over the phone instead of seeing it,his " it’s just a fixed panel " turned out to be a fixed/door/fixed/fixed return but I will still honour the quote as this isn’t my full time line of work so it’s still profit to me even if it takes me a long time,If I had seen it first I would charge $250 to restore and then $150 to coat it,way cheaper than the nearly $3000 for new shower glass.
I will try to concentrate on restoration first and window cleaning second but will let what ever takes over as being more available to be my focus.
I also picked up some RCL 70 today and was wondering how you go about using it? directions are a little lacking,I will mix it up as per directions and modify ratio to suit how it’s working but do you apply it with a white pad and scrub in or just wipe over the area and let to sit and let chemical do it’s thing before rinsing off? do I need to be at regular intervals rinsing well with water to keep any runoff from going on tiles or frame? I’m wondering if this stuff does any damage to frames or tiled surfaces etc?
Start the mix out about 200ml RCL water in rest to fill a 1L bottle then work up, wet down the tiles before I use 0000 steel wool when doing it by hand. but I have found that it the deposits are suborn then the CL 40 will take them off if not by hand then with a polisher.
Forgot to update this but I used the RCL with no effect at all,started at 200 per 1L and went up to nearly full strength and then tried the CL 40 which did nothing also so will put this one in the too hard basket,any other process I think will end up costing too much to the customer.
Also the CL 40 smells identical to Bar keepers friend so I suspect they share the same main ingredient
Okay Oz, help me out here. Are we looking THROUGH the glass you cleaned here with BKF? Or is it the glass to the side right, beside the window? Reason I ask is if you removed the before pic with BKF, that must have taken a lot of rubbing. Op on another post showed some terrible water spotting, calcium deposits, and just wonder how much BKF can do.
Both pics are with the shower door open so the door is directly in front of the exterior window and blinds(you can see the edge of the open door where the shower tap is),This shower was done with BKF cook top cleaner and scrubbed with non scratch white pad by hand,wasn’t too hard,others I have done with using a white pad on an orbital sander which was purely for doing it faster,as I have found out it doesn’t work for every job
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Oz, thanks for the reply. I figured that. And…for me, BKF is a good first try on anything, I would not be without it. 
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Went to do a shower restoration but the glass was too far gone to help it and be cost effective,got talking to him about replacing the glass through my day job and he said stuff it I want to enclose the bathroom off from the bedroom so I installed floor to ceiling glass partition in front of the spa bath and then the old shower I removed the two fixed panels and ran a new fixed panel to the ceiling and a new return panel to line up with the door,will also get frosted film for privacy,looks great but he didn’t want to replace the door which I think is nuts,he just spent 5 grand for all this and leaves the door old and stained,hopefully be able to talk him into replacing it and also up sell him for the nano coating on the glass
