No problem, definitely worth doing for you're tank, especially since its outside the tank, easy access. I'll definitely post some pics for you.

Picture time!

Well yesterday me and my friend got 2 more hours of work done on the inside of the tank. Before starting we marked all the scratches with a red marker on the outside so we knew where they were and then spent 2 hours buffing a patch about 2' x 2'. There are lots of scratches within that area so a single scratch didn't nearly get 2 hours of buffing however I'm happy to report 5 scratches did disappear.

Quite a few scratches you can feel but we're going to put in the time to take them out as well. Taking pictures of the scratches turned out hard to do because of the lighting and camera but we got some of them.

Here's what we're working with.


Here's most of the scratches outlined, didn't do them all. The blue lines where suppose to be deep scratches but it wall all done by eye not feel and it turns out some that looked deep weren't and vice versa.


Here's a few scratches


This area is bad and quite a few can be felt


This is when we did the long scratch on the outside of the tank which came out completely. Notice how it looks runny on the glass, in my opinion that is to runny, it should be pastier.


This is how it should look, in my opinion, now its like a toothpaste and you can actually see it between the glass and the foam bonnet. Now its actually grinding away at the glass


This is good too but not enough material on the glass


Inside look


when we took a break and it dried, all that is cerium oxide and wipes away clean.



The cerium oxide goes a long way, especially once you get a technique going. When we mixed it I put about 1 teaspoon in a pan and about 1/4 cup water maybe a little less. We added small amounts to the bonnet and then spray the glass with water as it dries out. When it dries out it looks like all the cerium oxide is gone but once re-wet it comes back. The key to making it last is by having it more like toothpaste when you spin the buffer. Then you get no spray and nothing gets wasted. The first night we had a lot of spray off and wasted quite a bit but day 2 not much was used.

The cerium oxide when mixed looks like milk but as it dries out on the glass by buffing it turns to a paste, then the key is to spray just enough water to keep it a paste and not runny like the pic above.

I'm guessing using a foam bonnet is probably the safest way to go if you have no experience like me and my friend, reason I say this is because you can't get enough speed to heat up the glass. Day 2 we where able to run the drill at a faster rpm because the cerium oxide was thicker and didn't spray however we noticed the bonnet starting falling apart when we went fast. I'm guessing because heat was building and the pad starting falling apart, so we slowed it back down and no more damage has been done to the bonnet. I was told using a felt bob you could get the rpms up which is probably a good thing because you will buff out the scratches quicker however you will get heat on the glass and possibly break it. As I said I recommend the foam just for the fact you can't build heat without wrecking it.

I'm going tomorrow to do a few more hours, I might have more pictures but will definitely post completed pictures. The 6 scratches we did remove you could never tell because there are so many that what sucks, they all have to go or its almost pointless.

I think I've convinced my friend its worth the time since he already spent around $1500 for everything so it better look good when done and with all those scratches it doesn't. Tank and oak stand cost $800.

This has turned into a really useful thread, thanks for every ones input.