Who here has polished glass with cerium oxide? Please advise!

Elbereth · Jul 26, 2021

I'm planning to polish my hazy aquarium glass with cerium oxide. Looked at the glass polishing kits on Amazon but most of them seem to come with wool pads which I've read can be too aggressive and would need to be followed by a softer material, like the cloth buffing wheel mentioned in this article: https://www.amazonasmagazine.com/2019/02/06/polish-hazy-aquarium-glass-with-cerium-oxide/
(I can buy the cloth buffing wheels at my local hardware store but I'm having a harder time finding the arbor for the drill. Hence why I'm drawn to getting a kit.)

Has anyone used wool polishing pads on glass? Did you have to follow up with a softer material to achieve a final polish?

Any links to particular products would be extremely useful as well. Thanks in advance!

(Please don't tell me it might be more cost efficient to buy another tank instead of repairing this one! That's not the point.)

eloser · Jul 26, 2021

I've done it twice. The wool pads are fine to use. I used wool pads along with the foam pads for polishing cars (Orange and blue). Glass is very difficult to polish...extremely tedious, so be ready to put in some serious hours. Don't bother trying to get rid of deep scratches completely (if you can feel it with your nails then it's deep). You will end up creating a "Coke bottle" effect if you try to polish it out completely. Just soften it up a bit and leave it. It will not be as noticeable once filled with water.

theatrus · Jul 26, 2021

I've never polished an aquarium, but have done auto and home glass before.

I used a wool like pad on windshields before - you need something that can hold the cerium oxide. The pad shouldn't cause any action on the window as its too soft for the glass. I never used a second pad.

Buffing glass is very very slow, so its actually hard to mess it up unless you're polishing with diamonds or hard rocks. Keep the polisher moist with some RO water so it has a chance to work. Expect to be spending a few hours per pane depending on the depth you need to polish to.