Quickie
Nothing new last night, but to get you through the day, here's a quick tip for you if you're thinking about buying a used car: Be very careful what you use to get the soaped #'s off the windshield with.
The set-up: I was borrowing a friend's wonderful V-10 dodge truck because it was deemed slightly more reliabile than my own and I was fetching a Firetruck from several states away and needed the hp. Besides, he couldn't afford to fill it with gas, and I always returned it full, so he made out like a bandit. He was trying half-heartedly to sell it, and had "for sale" and such soaped all over the front windows with a product called appropriatly "windshield chalk." Since the fire truck rescue was going to involve some quasi-legal towing techniques anyway, I figured it best to remove the attention-drawing markings before I set out on the trip.
He had said it would come off with water and a little elbow grease, but after half an hour or so my arms were tired and I needed something a little stiffer than the stream from the hose. I went inside the house and got what we in the Navy called a "green scratchie," one of the products typically made by 3M or an imatator that's a stiff green plastic material as often as not bonded to one side of a snonge and in pretty everyone's kitchen already. I even remember the conversation in my head about whether or not it would scratch the windshield, and it being plastic it was determined that it wouldn't.
I started scrubbing, and spraying with the hose, and mere moments later all the offending used-car lot/ autocross style markings were removed. Unfortunatly, as the glass dried, I realised just how very wrong I had been. Everywhere the greenie had touched the glass it was scratched, including the tempered safety glass side windows.
What to do? I ended-up ordering a scratch removing kit from somewhere, a product designed for old windshields that have been sand blasted by time, and it did a decent job of cleaning up the damage. But how do you bring a truck back to the owner and say "Uh, sorry, I seem to have destroyed your glass?"
Like I needed more stressors that trip, anyway. Anyone else changed a Budd 20" tire on the side of the road with hand tools and a Hi-Lift jack? I don't recommend it to my friends.
Lesson learned: Green plastic scratchie pads have some sort of fiberglass impregnated in them that will, in fact, scratch your glass. Now you know too.
The set-up: I was borrowing a friend's wonderful V-10 dodge truck because it was deemed slightly more reliabile than my own and I was fetching a Firetruck from several states away and needed the hp. Besides, he couldn't afford to fill it with gas, and I always returned it full, so he made out like a bandit. He was trying half-heartedly to sell it, and had "for sale" and such soaped all over the front windows with a product called appropriatly "windshield chalk." Since the fire truck rescue was going to involve some quasi-legal towing techniques anyway, I figured it best to remove the attention-drawing markings before I set out on the trip.
He had said it would come off with water and a little elbow grease, but after half an hour or so my arms were tired and I needed something a little stiffer than the stream from the hose. I went inside the house and got what we in the Navy called a "green scratchie," one of the products typically made by 3M or an imatator that's a stiff green plastic material as often as not bonded to one side of a snonge and in pretty everyone's kitchen already. I even remember the conversation in my head about whether or not it would scratch the windshield, and it being plastic it was determined that it wouldn't.
I started scrubbing, and spraying with the hose, and mere moments later all the offending used-car lot/ autocross style markings were removed. Unfortunatly, as the glass dried, I realised just how very wrong I had been. Everywhere the greenie had touched the glass it was scratched, including the tempered safety glass side windows.
What to do? I ended-up ordering a scratch removing kit from somewhere, a product designed for old windshields that have been sand blasted by time, and it did a decent job of cleaning up the damage. But how do you bring a truck back to the owner and say "Uh, sorry, I seem to have destroyed your glass?"
Like I needed more stressors that trip, anyway. Anyone else changed a Budd 20" tire on the side of the road with hand tools and a Hi-Lift jack? I don't recommend it to my friends.
Lesson learned: Green plastic scratchie pads have some sort of fiberglass impregnated in them that will, in fact, scratch your glass. Now you know too.
posted by Stephen at 9:14 AM
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