Removing water marks on port glass?

5 hours ago, tursiops said:

Did you buff by hand or with a buffing wheel?

Just rubbed with a microfiber drying towel I use to dry my car. One of the ones with a grid texture on it. Took a bit of effort but only about a minute for each piece of glass. Wiped it clean with a towel to inspect. Then when I was done ran it under the faucet to remove any remaining cleaner. 

Just don't try it on your plastic ports. 

Bill

CLR, available at any hardware store, is probably your best solution. Start with a very diluted solution first and read the directions on the label. Cleaning glass with this product should be no problem.

thanks for putting the photos up! definitely a good case of watermark staining for sure, 

I've had a few friends say that your run-of-the-mill toothpaste is a good place to start! I've tried it before (although on not so bad of a stained port) and seemed to work fine. seems the toothpaste grinds away at it until they disappear without leaving scratches.  But always worth a try! 

good luck! 

On 12/22/2019 at 1:51 AM, rhkdiver2 said:

CLR, available at any hardware store, is probably your best solution. Start with a very diluted solution first and read the directions on the label. Cleaning glass with this product should be no problem.

Unfortunately I tried but nothing changed.

Same bad luck with the polish, no visible results. 

some other tips?

I pallied eveything 3 times. Should I do it more times?

On 8/4/2019 at 12:17 PM, mackman said:

Just rubbed with a microfiber drying towel I use to dry my car. One of the ones with a grid texture on it. Took a bit of effort but only about a minute for each piece of glass. Wiped it clean with a towel to inspect. Then when I was done ran it under the faucet to remove any remaining cleaner. 

Hey Mackman, I did it as you suggest. After drying it is shining. But after running water to clean it, everything looks pretty the same. Or little little improved. How many times should I repeat the "gesture"? 

A couple of other things that people have suggested before on WP: Brasso metal polish and... wait for it..... Coke.

I did wonder when I heard Coke if they weren't referring to drinking some whilst polishing away. But it destroys teeth and polishes pennies, so why not?

Brasso is a British thing but there's probably a similar product available elsewhere. It's brilliant for polishing brass and copper.

If you flip back through this post, you'll see I commented back in 2014 that for a flat port I had with weird marks, in the end I had to get it reglassed. Sometimes there just seems to be "stuff" in the water that impacts on the glass.

The other thing I wondered in retrospect is mould. If you've had the port somewhere with high humidity and mould growth sets in. I've lost a couple of lenses through mould growth having had them for about 12 months in Indonesia with high humidity. At least a port you can get reglassed relatively inexpensively!

I've had success polishing spotty glass flat ports with Novus polish #2 (fine scratch) and a soft cloth.  It has enough grit the clean the glass and does not seem to scratch it. I tried a bunch of other things without luck so figured it was worth a try.  Seemed to work pretty well.

I use Mothers California Gold Water Spot Remover For Glass, it works really well.  Has a combination of mild abrasives and mineral dissolving chemicals.

My Subal port for the 105mm lens is starting to develop that "bloom" now. I'll give Mother a go.....

Hi,

I wake up this topic because I've just used this product : https://www.amazon.fr/Glass-Polish-pare-brise-essuie-glace-accessoires/dp/B00ADMA8GQ/ref=asc_df_B00ADMA8GQ/ on my old WWL-1 which had a lot of water marks every-where (I did not dry it well after all dives), and the results were impressive. So I wanted to share it with you.

I did it with my hands (no drilling machine) and the provided pads (white side), and with very small efforts I've already removed almost every thing (not more than 30-45 minutes of rubbing). I don't remember where I did read about this product, maybe here but not on this topic ? The "Mothers WaterSpot Remover" dit not work for me, but I hadn't used any pad - just micro fibers a little rugged.

The only remaining marks are on the sides of the dome, near the lens hood. These parts are difficult to clean.

There were also a very small scratch near the center and it seems to have disapeared (or at least less visible when eye checking through the lens).

NOTE : I dit not yet tested it underwater, I will let you know but the water deposits marks were visible mostly when shooting in high contrast situations (sun in front, and big shadows/dark zones). But in air, there are no water deposits anymore in the center and around.

1 hour ago, rlamarche said:

Hi,

I wake up this topic because I've just used this product : https://www.amazon.fr/Glass-Polish-pare-brise-essuie-glace-accessoires/dp/B00ADMA8GQ/ref=asc_df_B00ADMA8GQ/ on my old WWL-1 which had a lot of water marks every-where (I did not dry it well after all dives), and the results were impressive. So I wanted to share it with you.

I did it with my hands (no drilling machine) and the provided pads (white side), and with very small efforts I've already removed almost every thing (not more than 30-45 minutes of rubbing). I don't remember where I did read about this product, maybe here but not on this topic ? The "Mothers WaterSpot Remover" dit not work for me, but I hadn't used any pad - just micro fibers a little rugged.

The only remaining marks are on the sides of the dome, near the lens hood. These parts are difficult to clean.

There were also a very small scratch near the center and it seems to have disapeared (or at least less visible when eye checking through the lens).

NOTE : I dit not yet tested it underwater, I will let you know but the water deposits marks were visible mostly when shooting in high contrast situations (sun in front, and big shadows/dark zones). But in air, there are no water deposits anymore in the center and around.

 

It appears that this kit uses very fine cerium oxide powder, they say it is non-abrasive but I believe the action does remove some material, I found some articles that note that Cerium oxide is a particularly effective glass polish as even though it is not particularly hard it has a combined mechanical and chemical action to help reduce hills and valleys on the surface being polished.   The article mentioned 20 nanometre/min material removal rates with mechanical polishing of glass.  This polish probably doesn't remove at that rate - it probably has finer particles and hand polishing would be much slower, but it will still remove some material. 

The concern I would have would be if the polish removed any coating on the glass surface.  Though it may be that the coating has reacted with seawater and is what is actually causing the water spotting.

1 hour ago, ChrisRoss said:

It appears that this kit uses very fine cerium oxide powder, they say it is non-abrasive but I believe the action does remove some material, I found some articles that note that Cerium oxide is a particularly effective glass polish as even though it is not particularly hard it has a combined mechanical and chemical action to help reduce hills and valleys on the surface being polished.   The article mentioned 20 nanometre/min material removal rates with mechanical polishing of glass.  This polish probably doesn't remove at that rate - it probably has finer particles and hand polishing would be much slower, but it will still remove some material. 

The concern I would have would be if the polish removed any coating on the glass surface.  Though it may be that the coating has reacted with seawater and is what is actually causing the water spotting.

Thank you for your insights.

Are you sure there is any coating on the glass dome ? By the way it might be possible because I haven't had any trouble with another glass wet wide angle from AOI. But I have this problem also on flat ports from Nauticam.

I'm sure that there is an anti-reflective glass coating inside the dome, and this part is in the sealed compartment so it is well protected.

But the rear of the WWL-1 has not water marks at all. So your hypothesis might be true, but the coating would have reacted to the clear water with limestone I think.

My WWL-1 made a lot of dives, I dive with it every weeks, many times, for 5 years. So not less than 500 dives, always rinsed with clear water after each dive, but not immediately after, and sometimes it was still wet more than 24h after because I did forgot to remove the hard lens cap and was not drying it.

In contrast with the typical domes, they have a neoprene cover that, I think, prevent the chemical reactions by not providing any air .. .that's an hypothesis.

I will dive with the lens and see if the quality is degraded or not. And I have a brand new WWL-1B to compare with

1 hour ago, ChrisRoss said:

The concern I would have would be if the polish removed any coating on the glass surface.  Though it may be that the coating has reacted with seawater and is what is actually causing the water spotting.

Really interesting thought, Chris. What is going on that causes these blooms? It has to be a chemical reaction, right? I've had around half a dozen glass ports over the last 20 years and the problem has only ever been on flat ports - never domes. I can see it starting again now on the flatport for my 105mm lens. I know I don't look after that port any differently from the domes. They never sit around with water drops on them. 

I've not yet tried Mother Waterspot Remover - although plan to (cost of mailing it is more than twice the cost of the product: but then that's still cheaper than reglassing!). But worth a shot; and maybe the suggestion from rlamarche.

1 hour ago, TimG said:

Really interesting thought, Chris. What is going on that causes these blooms? It has to be a chemical reaction, right? I've had around half a dozen glass ports over the last 20 years and the problem has only ever been on flat ports - never domes. I can see it starting again now on the flatport for my 105mm lens. I know I don't look after that port any differently from the domes. They never sit around with water drops on them. 

I've not yet tried Mother Waterspot Remover - although plan to (cost of mailing it is more than twice the cost of the product: but then that's still cheaper than reglassing!). But worth a shot; and maybe the suggestion from rlamarche.

What kind of cap do you use on the flat ports ? And on the domes ?

For the wwl-1 I always used the plastic hard cap, never the neoprene cover. I'm pretty sure that letting the hard cap on the dome after diving or rinsing, but still wet, would explain this chemical reaction, between the glass dome, the water (salted or not) in the air.

Using a neoprene cover might prevent this chemical reaction and would explain why you do not ever had this problem with your glass domes over the years.

I appreciate all the posts on this subject. Now that I'm getting ready to dive again, my interest is renewed on what a good approach is.

Like Chris Ross, I'm concerned about removing the desirable coatings from the WWL-1. So my question is: Is my image quality harmed more by losing the coating, or by leaving the watermarks on the lens?

Really hard to answer that. The two occasions that I have had long-term water marks, it is VERY hard to tell whether they impact on the image or not. I'm not sure they do. But they most certainly don't look good when the system is out of the water and it's hard to believe they don't!

Here is the exact product I did ordered (from France) : https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B001THF8KA/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00

I also ordered this one but the color is slightly different : https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B005M273TM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00

If you had seen how was my dome before rubbing it, you would not think about the coating.

The glass surface was not smooth anymore, when rubbing it with the end of the finger.

I did see some-times the "cloud" effect when facing the sun with dark zones. In air, it was always visible. In water, not always.

I don't know how to compare the image quality between the brand new WWL-1B, and the old one. Tell me if you have any idea.

Sadly I did not take a photo of the surface of the dome "before", but I can tell you that it was horrible. Now it is like new. I will dive with it tomorrow to see how it performs. Keep you updated.

Right now I'm looking for hand pad to repair the lens on the remaining surface neer the lens hood, and smaller ones for the flat macro port that has some small scratches and a few water marks - very little compared to the dome.

46 minutes ago, rlamarche said:

What kind of cap do you use on the flat ports ? And on the domes ?

For the wwl-1 I always used the plastic hard cap, never the neoprene cover. I'm pretty sure that letting the hard cap on the dome after diving or rinsing, but still wet, would explain this chemical reaction, between the glass dome, the water (salted or not) in the air.

Using a neoprene cover might prevent this chemical reaction and would explain why you do not ever had this problem with your glass domes over the years.

I don't use a cap at all on the flatports. Never. On the domes I use a neoprene one. 

I can see the logic of what you suggest but wouldn't that mean in some way the neoprene prevents whatever chemical reaction might be happening? Which seems a bit unlikely. Wouldn't having something like neoprene, which might actually hold a degree of salt water, actually contribute towards a chemical reaction?

3 minutes ago, TimG said:

Really hard to answer that. The two occasions that I have had long-term water marks, it is VERY hard to tell whether they impact on the image or not. I'm not sure they do. But they most certainly don't look good when the system is out of the water and it's hard to believe they don't!

 

 

I you look at video, while moving the camera, you can see a cloud effect moving.

On photo, most of the times it is "lost" in the details. But for sure you loose details because of these water marks, mostly contrast. Because the light coming into it is spreaded around the marks and can create ghost effects.

So for sure, coating or not, for me, it's worth removing. And this product acted as a miracle, it made my day :-D

Let's see how it performs tomorrow...