Scratched Dome Port

On my recent trip to the Bahamas my dome port got scratched I'm guessing from other housings in the rinse bucket on the boat. It is a Subal 6 inch glass port.

Can I polish these out without otherwise making it worse? If so how and with what?

I noticed the scratches (two, small, about the length of your little finger nail side by side) after my last dive of the trip so I think it happened when I handed my housing up to the DM upon surfacing from my last dive...so I don't know if it will show in future pictures. I think I read somewhere that underwater the scratches "disappear" and do not show up in the pictures but they bother my none the less. Wish people would be more careful especially since the dome port cover was in the bucket... and all the DM had to do is slip it on.

Thanks,

Bill

since it is a glass port, i cant think of any way to fix it. While it is true that it will not be notited once underwater, it is still annoying. if it was acrylic, you could get a polishing kit, but then you risk having a distortion in the pics from "sanding" down that section. Best way to not get scratches, is to not put your camera in the rinse bucket. 90% of accidents like this must come from the rinse bucket. you may want to consider getting a soft icechest, and keep it as your personal rinse bucket on the boat. just ask the dm's to put it in your bag, not in the rinse bucket. or have a buddy on the boat hold it until you get on and dof your gear.

i know some will bash me for this, but you dont neccesarily have to rinse the camera after every dive. as long as it stays moist, you should be able to rinse it after getting off the boat, since none of the salt will have dried on it.

If the scratch is VERY shallow, it may be possible to polish it off with a cerium oxyde solution, and a very soft buff mounted on a slow drill. This method is often used for flat glass on building facade when replacement is too costly or difficult. It is fairly inexpensive, and you would only need a very small amount anyway. However, you'll need a fair bit of elbow grease, as it is a very SLOW process.

If you have a scratch on your glass-domeport which is visible in your images, you should ask somebody professionally working with optical glass to try polishing it.

If they are not able to remove the scratch or the polishing causes distortion, ther will be only one possibility left: Remove the scratch with your credit card ;-)

Cheers Thilo

Thanks guys. The scratches appear to be fairly shallow. I'm hoping they can be polished out. I may take the port to a camera shop to see what they think...