Cleaning Sodium Silicate/WaterGlass/LiquidGlass Off Of Glass

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Fred
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Cleaning Sodium Silicate/WaterGlass/LiquidGlass Off Of Glass

Post by Fred »

So the other day while butchering the Suzuki to make it drivable we put a bottle of radiator stop leak in it. The instructions said "put it in, 15 minutes or until leak stops" so it's still in there. I keep topping it up to the very brim to avoid the stuff drying on radiator cores etc. What I also foolishly did was poke the expansion hose out through the bonnet so we could watch it to ensure we knew when it got too hot. Big fail. It did indeed eject a bit of fluid up the windscreen... and that fluid hardened into the solid form of sodium silicate, which is all but impossible to remove from glass. To quote an American retailer, Lehmans, "DO NOT USE OR SPILL ON GLASS SURFACES AS WATER GLASS CANNOT BE REMOVED WHEN IT’S DRY.". Uh oh.

I tried wiping it off with glass cleaner before realising my mistake. No change. I tried scrubbing it off with Jif/Cif/whatever it's called in your country, a light abrasive that you can cut/polish paint with if the paint is pretty oxidised. Don't leave it on though, as it also bleaches the colour out, but not quickly. Scrubbing with Jif was very hard work, and although sort of working, very very slow work. Next I tried a bit of Jif on some old cheap and mostly worn out scotch bright. This worked, but left scratches. Finally I tried 1000 grit wet and dry, first dry, then wet, and it worked best, still leaving scratches, but very fine ones that you can't easily see, unlike the large patch of sodium silicate obscuring the view. 1200 or even 2000 may also work, with less/finer scratching.

My 2c. Any other solutions welcome.

Fred.
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reanimotion
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Re: Cleaning Sodium Silicate/WaterGlass/LiquidGlass Off Of G

Post by reanimotion »

http://www.spot-x.net/
best I've found without going to a full glass polish

Bunnings Hardware has it here in Oz, NZ might stock it too
Steve
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Fred
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Re: Cleaning Sodium Silicate/WaterGlass/LiquidGlass Off Of G

Post by Fred »

Cheers, I'll check it out. Come to think of it, we used to use something called CLR that was pretty effective. Maybe that's still around and maybe it would work on this stuff too. Might put some on the hotel windscreen (which is cracked and due for replacement anyway) and see what happens :-)
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FreeEMS dev diary and its comments thread and my turbo truck!
n00bs, do NOT PM or email tech questions! Use the forum!
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