Heavy Equipment Windshield Polishing?

[Brent Deines]

Are any of you polishing polycarbonate heavy equipment windshields? I hadn't really thought about it but a Delta Kits employee polished out a Bobcat windshield last week and the owner was extremely pleased. He said a new replacement was $4000+ although my guess is closer to $400. Either way, it was a huge improvement and a significant cost savings. The best part is it sounds like we will be getting additional windshields and headlights from this company.

If we end up doing a lot of these larger surfaces we'll go to a 7" rotary sander/polisher to speed things up a bit but even using the 3" Griot's tool it only took about 30 minutes to complete the job.

When I was replacing glass I used to have a pretty good niche market for replacing glass and plastic windows in heavy equipment but never really thought about trying to buff them out. Just wondering if any of you have delved into this market and if so if it has proved to be lucrative.

[Old Blue 66]

Brent,

I have the 7" Griots and Id love to put it to the test. What procedure did your employee use on this windshield?

[Brent Deines]

Exact same method we use for headlight restoration. For the record, it was not perfectly clear when the job was finished but the improvement was pretty dramatic. There were deep scratches and crazing from years of abuse and being left out in the weather so it was difficult to see through it before the restoration and very acceptable for heavy equipment after the restoration.

[Old Blue 66]

I would l think that 30 minutes of your time should net about the same charge as a HLR. Maybe even in a commercial application, it would warrant the same as we charge for commercial trucks which is 50% more than a passenger car HLR.

This is a great idea. Time to start looking for these customers.

[Brent Deines]

Not sure how many heavy equipment windshields are polycarbonate and how many are glass. I've replaced a lot of glass for logging and construction companies and a few poly but perhaps poly is becoming more popular. The companies I worked with did not like poly because it scratches far easier than glass but it does have the advantage of being harder to break.

I'm not sure a Bobcat is actually considered heavy equipment, I just didn't know how else to describe it.

This particular windshield was extremely thick, which would account for the high price for a replacement.

[Wayneious]

Not sure how many heavy equipment windshields are polycarbonate and how many are glass. I've replaced a lot of glass for logging and construction companies and a few poly but perhaps poly is becoming more popular. The companies I worked with did not like poly because it scratches far easier than glass but it does have the advantage of being harder to break.

I'm not sure a Bobcat is actually considered heavy equipment, I just didn't know how else to describe it.

This particular windshield was extremely thick, which would account for the high price for a replacement.

Was just browsing through here and was thinking about your sentence of:

The companies I worked with did not like poly because it scratches far easier than glass but it does have the advantage of being harder to break.

Was wondering of anyone thought of trying to contract them into a quarterly, annual or bi-annual inspection service where you would come polish up their fleet for scratches to help keep the windshield clear.

Don't know, just throwing that out there.

[Old Blue 66]

A bi-annual inspection. Now there's something that I haven't thought about. EXCELLENT idea!

[Brent Deines]

I like that idea as well. Most of the companies I worked with that had heavy equipment also had trucks that we checked on a weekly or monthly basis but having something actually on the schedule for the heavy equipment is something I had not thought of.