Getting Scratches Out of Glass

[AsleepInYorkshire]

We've two glass fish tanks which we use for quarantining new or sick fish.

Both were purchased from previous owners. One is quite badly scratched, the other has some small superficial scratches.

They are both currently empty (removed from the lounge as a new carpet is being fitted).

So I thought it may be an opportune moment to try and reduce the scratches. I've watched various YouTube video's but thought I'd just ask if anyone has any sort of experience of this sort of thing and can offer thoughts and/or suggestions please

Thank you

AiY

[monabri]

I've not tried it but isn't toothpaste a possibility on glass?

[bungeejumper]

Jeweller's rouge is what you use to get scratches out of watch faces and car windscreens. It comes as a powder, or as a wax which at least doesn't escape everywhere. Ruddy hard work, though, and it won't do deep scratches. (Made a nice job of refurbing the camera lens on my phone, though. )

There are whispers that you can speed up the job with a Dremel, and maybe tackle deeper scratches too. Might be worth googling?

BJ

[Mike4]

If a scratch is deep enough to be felt with your fingernail, forget polishing it out with rouge.

Less trouble and cheaper to buy a new fish tank, if you value your time at more than 1p an hour

[tjh290633]

It is not likely to be a practical proposition to polish out the scratches. The odds are that you will end up with an opaque piece of glass. Professionally, like with spectacle lenses, they would use several grades of grinding medium to achieve a decent result, and it is not a short process using a mechanical grinder. Using a resin with a suitable refractive index to fill the scratches might make more sense. Not a DIY job.

Compatibility with the fish then becomes a problem, as emanations from the resin might kill them.

TJH

[newlyretired]

Compatibility with the fish then becomes a problem, as emanations from the resin might kill them.

...unless it's on the outside of the tank!

newlyretired

[tjh290633]

Compatibility with the fish then becomes a problem, as emanations from the resin might kill them.

...unless it's on the outside of the tank!

newlyretired

Good point. One problem is that surface defects can be the source of major cracks when the tank is full of water and under load. I saw one instance of failure where the likely cause was a vacuum cleaner striking the bottom of the tank. The small extra stress initiated a crack.

TJH