Paint removal

[Notat Home]

I washed my car and noted some tiny spots of white paint on the windshield and hood. They have been repainting the street markers recently, and I suspect this is overspray.

Years ago I would have taken a razor blade and scraped off the spots, but that was when windshields were glass; they are now plastic and I don't want to scratch it. I considered trying some paint thinner, but I don't know if that will affect the plastic, or the paint on the hood.

Any suggestions on the best way to unspeckle my car?

[hrhofmann]

What kind of a car has plastic windshield????????? You are definitely no at home if you think windshields are plastic. They have a layer of plastic imbedded between two layers of glas for safety reaons , but the outside layer is glass. If it wasn't, after the first rainy day, the windshield would be full of semicircular arc-shaped scratches.

[Tegger]

Notat Home wrote in news:a- qdnTQCtcNrME7SnZ2dnUVZ [e-mail]:

They're still glass. Since about the '50s, windshiled "safety glass" has been made as a sandwich of two sheets of glass with a layer of soft vinyl in between. You'll never come into contact with the vinyl unless the glass is shattered.

Go ahead and use the razor blade.

Auto-body prep cleaner, such as Prep Sol, or Pro Form. It won't harm the baked factory paint, but will take the overspray off in a jiffy. It will even clean your windshield.

[EXT]

Actually, laminated "safety glass" has been around a long time before the '50s, it was used long before they started using tempered glass for the other windows.

[clare]

Windsheilds are STILL glass.

[clare]

Yes, ALL the glass in my 1928 Chevy was laminated glass.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Laminated glass was invented in 1903 by the French chemist Edouard Benedictus, inspired by a laboratory accident. A glass flask had become coated with the plastic cellulose nitrate and when dropped shattered but did not break into pieces. Benedictus fabricated a glass-plastic composite to reduce injuries in car accidents. It was not immediately adopted by automobile manufacturers, but laminated glass was widely used in the eyepieces of gas masks during World War I. By 1939 some 600,000 square feet (56,000 m2) of "Indestructo" safety glass was being used every year in vehicles produced at the Ford Motor Company works, Dagenham England[1]. "Indestructo" safety glass was manufactured by British Indestructo Glass Ltd of London.[2] This was the laminated glass used by the Ford Motor Company in 1939, chosen because "it gives the most complete protection. In addition to being splinterproof it is crystal clear and permanently non-discolourable."[3]. This quote hints at some of the technical issues, problems and concerns that stopped laminated glass from being widely used in automobiles immediately after it was invented. Modern laminated glass is produced by bonding two or more layers of ordinary annealed glass together with a plastic interlayer, usually polyvinyl butyral (PVB). The PVB is sandwiched by the glass which is passed through rollers to expel any air pockets and form the initial bond then heated to around 70 °C in a pressurized oil bath. The tint at the top of some car windshields is in the PVB.

[Doug]

Tiny amount of laquer thinner per spot and razor blade or cotton swab to wipe it off.

[Norminn]

Have you tried the car wash? That would be my first thought. There is stuff at the auto supply places for removing road tar and such....I had a ding on my nice, new silver Toyota when I bumped a painted broom handle against the door. The gunk remover took it off nicely with no residual blemish.

[Twayne]

lol, PLASTIIC windshields? Not of the average car from the factory! The only plastic is sandwiched between the two layers of safety glass.

[gregz]

I had yellow reflective paint on my tires and wheel wells. The only thing that worked was a hard plastic scraper. I tried some solvents, no luck. Some day soon they will paint new lines and I will go down the road and say, pretty lines. Next week after they will oil and stone the road covering up the yellow lines, like previous years.

Greg