How to Fix A Scratched Glass Dome at Home
Polished glass dome before vs after
A few months ago, I embarked on the underwater photography journey and invested in a Sony A7C II, Nauticam housing, and a beautiful 180mm glass dome. It was a significant investment, but I’ve been very happy with the setup - worth the extra penny.
As happy as I was with it, I was equally devastated when I found a couple of scratches in the middle of the dome after a boat trip in Dominica.
Stuck in Dominica with no immediate fix available, I left them despite that I could see marks showing up on my photos (though easily fixed in post-production), until my trip back to London when I brought it home. But then I found out that sending it back to Nauticam for repairs would mean shipping the dome to Hong Kong and it would take at least six weeks - and I couldn’t afford that kind of time. So, I decided to take a risk and try polishing them out myself.
I ordered some windscreen polish from Amazon - I wasn’t sure which ones would work so I ordered a few but only ended up using the polish liquid from one.
Here’s the process I followed:
Clean the dome – It’s important to make sure the dome is clean. Any dirt or grit can make things worse during polishing.
Shake the polish – Give the polish a good shake before using it.
Apply the polish – Apply the polish to the polishing pad that came with the kit, and polished in small, circular motions.
Rinse, check and repeat – After a few minutes, rinse the dome to assess the progress. Repeat if necessary.
It was very scary at the beginning because I wasn’t sure if the polish will make things worse! But having checked after just five minutes of polishing, the smaller scratch was already much less noticeable, and I was relieved to see there was no damage from the polishing process which gave me confidence to continue. The deeper scratch took a bit longer (a few hours), but even after 30 minutes, I was confident it wouldn’t appear in my photos anymore.
A friend kindly stepped in to help, saving my hands and arms. We continued polishing manually until the scratch was barely visible, which took a few hours. One of the kits that I bought actually came with a polishing pad that works with a drill. We probably could have done that to save manual effort, but I didn’t have a drill readily available and just to be safe I decided to try it by hand. But if I had to do this again I’d definitely go for the drill method!
Products I used:
Used the whole kit: https://amzn.to/3E5WFwl
Bought it for the drill method but didn’t end up using the liquid: https://amzn.to/43nefq3
Both kit came with nice clothes for drying / cleaning the dome which is handy. The polishing pads are a bit different - one was a block and one was a thin pad (to attach to another block for the drill method). The block one was easier to handle (easy to grip for long and repetitive polishing), but the thin pad was actually really useful for reaching to the edges when I polished the whole dome in the end due to the shape of the protected plastic around the dome. So I was glad I had both kits!
If circumstances allow, it’s probably still better to send your gear for authorized servicing. I can’t take responsibility for the outcome of your attempt! But it’s reassuring to know that polishing out scratches on a glass dome at home is possible, and a scratch doesn’t necessarily mean your dome is ruined.
Learning:
The key takeaway for me is to always put the dome cap back on when it’s not in use. Don’t be lazy, or you’ll spend 1000 times the effort (or money) in trying to correct your mistake!!
Any additional questions please let me know.
I’m still learning the best practices for maintaining the underwater housing setup through trials and errors. Do you have any tips for keeping your setup in good condition and minimizing wear and tear?
