Topic: Restoring cloudy glass using metal polish....an amazing result.

[Lustrousstone]

It will remove your fingerprints, as workers in pineapple canneries used to be able to attest.

[chopin-liszt]

that blumin' man "cooked" a pork belly by injecting it with pineapple juice on tv once.
My own fingerprints are currently disappearing, but that's just one of my weird symptoms and nothing to do with fruit.

Eating a diet of nothing but pineapple will dissolve you from the inside out. Not to be recommended.

[Anne]

Eating a diet of just one thing isn't good, irrespective of what it is!

[Paul S.]

as teenagers - when old money was still spendable and before decimilization had been dreamed of  - we sometimes soaked those large old pennies (d) in Coca-Cola or Pepsi.            This would produce a marvellously shining coin that looked just like new - bet those drinks didn't do our insides too good either.

[chopin-liszt]

Absolutely, Anne, a single food is of no use, but there are some single ones which are worse than others and will result in more damage earlier on. From what I have gathered, squirrel meat is particularly devoid of nutrients other than the protein and will result in a rapid demise from a lack of vitamins, while pineapple will dissolve your innards and there's not much recovering from that.
Carrots will turn you bright orange but not kill you quite so quickly - and you can recover from them, I believe.

The stuff Paul mentions is good for cleaning toilets as well as coins, but not much else.

[Anne E.B.]

I've experimented with T-Cut Colour Restorer with some success in the past - used for paintwork on cars (& other painted surfaces).  But, I've only ever used it on pieces of glass that are not valuable.
It worked on very light surface scratches. I haven't tried it out on cloudy glass, but try to avoid buying that.
Its supposed to bring back lustre, remove oxidation, scratches, ingrained grime, tar spots and baked on insects

[kisslikeether]

A dremel with a felt pad and a thin paste made with cerium oxide and some patience is my tried and tested method- I've made a few custom implements for tall slender vases and also utilise tiny fishing weights

[Paul S.]

just wish people wouldn't keep carping on about it........                 when you say tiny fishing weights, are you referring to what anglers call 'split-shot'  -  those 2 - 3 mm. dia. balls, that once were made of lead, but now are required by law, I think, to be made from another less toxic metal?? ............   or did you mean something completely different
For enclosed cavities such as decanters, there is a proprietary product called 'Magic Balls' (or at least there used to be)  -  small 'shot' shaped steel balls covered in copper, which can be used inside the glass - with some form of liquid metal polish such as Brasso - and then shaken for some minutes.   But this product will obviously not repair damage to the surface of the glass, and is intended to remove light staining only.

If you read the old posts, there was much talk of using flexible drives powered by an electric drill, and felt discs and cerium/aluminium oxide etc.
On external curved surfaces, care is needed to avoid putting 'flats' on surfaces, if too much rubbing is applied.

Unless the water staining is light, I always found it frustrating not being able to repair the surface properly, and of course there's always the problem - especially on internal surfaces - that after the scale has been removed, the glass will prove to be damaged and beyond amateur repair.

Appreciate this all sounds very pessimistic, but so often we spend a long time working on a piece of glass, then washing and drying it, only to find it still remains cloudy.
 

[brucebanner]

Cerium oxide and a drill attachment with a sponge on the end of a plastic rod works for me on most waterstained glass, if you can see pitting inside the glass then it's hopeless it will need an acid dip. You can buy kits on eBay that do the job with videos on you tube that show you how it works, just don't use jewels rouge it will stain the glass red. It takes time and patience to clean old waterstained glass but the difference it can make is well worth the effort, I've found its near impossible to restore irridesent glass the likes of walsh walsh as the cerium oxide will remove the irridesent top layer which is very fine.

Cerium oxide is pointless on scratch marks they will have to be ground down then repolished then you will loose the original shape of the glass, damage and scratches and staining has to be expected of most well used glass.

Everything else, the steel balls, sterident and the like are as good as soap and water.

I clean almost all the interior glass I have that is dirty with an old flexible  barbecue skewer and cut down to size washing up scourers, there are grab tools you can buy from eBay to clean the interior of most glass and I use magills forceps to get the sponges back out of tight spaces (I'm lucky to be In  the trade to get magills for free but I think  you can buy them online as well).