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Posted By: Steven C. Polishing glass lantern lenses - Wed May 26 2021 11:44 PM
If you have ever thought of attempting this, DON'T!!!
After hours of work, I'm not sure I've made a difference!
What a royal pain in the a..!!!
Paid $75 for a kit. Worked me a$$ off! Maybe made a small dent in improving the lenses.
Curious as to other people's experiences.
Posted By: RandyM Re: Polishing glass lantern lenses - Thu May 27 2021 12:33 PM
Have you tried acetone? It is amazing what it will clean.
Posted By: Steven C. Re: Polishing glass lantern lenses - Thu May 27 2021 10:45 PM
Originally Posted by RandyM
Have you tried acetone? It is amazing what it will clean.

I'm not actually cleaning them, but polishing the scratches out. You have to go through 4 grades of sand paper, then a polishing/rubbing compound. All the while being careful to lubricate with water. Crazy amount of work.
Posted By: Paul Bell Re: Polishing glass lantern lenses - Sat May 29 2021 06:20 PM
Cerium oxide kind of works, but only scratches you can’t catch your nail on
Posted By: Bass Master Re: Polishing glass lantern lenses - Sat May 29 2021 08:33 PM
I was just going to mention that Paul, asked around all week at a couple of restoration shops I was at and
they all recomended using Cerium oxide too, They say it works well. Probably depending how deep the
scratch is, like Paul said.
Brian
Posted By: Paul Bell Re: Polishing glass lantern lenses - Sat May 29 2021 09:50 PM
Yeah, still need a lot of patience with it. Really good at removing foggy-ness from glass. You can buy the cerium oxide from amazon. People say you can use an attachment to a portable drill to buff with, but that would drive me crazy, too damn slow. I'm using it with either my automotive buffer or my small air buffing tool, much more RPM. There are videos on youtube on how to do it, you have to keep it wet to some degree but not dilute it too much, make it into a paste. But then it dries and you spray on a little more water. I'm not great at it, but it works better than anything else I've found.

Anyway, check youtube under cerium oxide polishing, ton of videos.

BTW, the powder is cheap, like $10, this should be cheap to do, just crazy labor intensive. I've never heard of sanding the glass before polishing, interesting, but never tried that.
Posted By: Steven C. Re: Polishing glass lantern lenses - Wed Jun 02 2021 07:20 PM
I bought a kit that started with about a 150 grit disc, to a 200 grit disc, to 400 to 500 or so. Almost nothing. Then felt pad disc's using the Cerium powder. It's a ton of work. I have probably 3-4 hours in each lens.
With more patients they could likely get to be perfect.
But I'm happy enough for what I'm planning to do with them. Add light and hang on my deck.

In the end it was worth it. 4 more to go.
Although these not the exact before and after's, the ones that are done looked just like the scratched ones before I began.

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Posted By: Steven C. Re: Polishing glass lantern lenses - Fri Jun 04 2021 01:56 AM
Got the first of two lights up

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Posted By: Paul Bell Re: Polishing glass lantern lenses - Wed Jun 09 2021 01:41 AM
Looks really good Steve.
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