Remove Anti-Glare Protective Coating???

[jabarnutcase]

Yes, you read it right folks.
I'll try to keep this brief...Those of you that know me also know that's hard.

My 4 year old Viewsonic 17" Aperture Grille CRT has been a GREAT Monitor with Super Graphics...I have others, but this has a special place in my heart. (Touching story already, huh?)

Anyway, I saw a small streak that looked like a small drop of clear liquid that I thought may have spilled and "run" a little bit.

To my absolute horror, when I went to clean it off with my usual cleaning solution, I realized the area became even bigger and I was in fact wiping off the protective Anti-Glare Coating....Permanantly.

Now, I have an area about the size of an Egg Yoke where the coating is gone.
That area is now MUCH brighter than the rest of the screen and obviously something that I can't tolerate. (I doubt many people could).

Bummer.
Now before I hear a lecture about what NOT to use on a Monitor Screen, I've already researched that to the hilt many times in the past.

I've been using this "iklear" (Apple polish..as in Mac) for YEARS......Highly recommended way back when by TechTV and others. I'm also aware of certain products that can permanently harm your display.

Now to the point. (Guess I've already failed miserably in my effort to keep it brief)
I see no hope whatsoever in somehow replacing the warn off "coated area" with a new coating material.
What I'm wondering is if there might be something that may REMOVE THE REST of the coating, so the entire screen at least looks the same. (I know, sounds crazy).

The area where the coating was removed is really bright. (Boy, I see what an Anti-glare coating does now).
My thought was that if I could remove all the rest and turn down the brightness a bit, I would still have a nice usable Monitor.
Seems such a shame to have a Monitor with a great Display with a bright white "blotch" on the top portion of the screen.

I know what you're thinking....just use the stuff that removed it in the first place! Hehe...no go, that's why I've used it for four years. Because it's "safe".

My searching turns up nothing. (Either to "refurbish" the missing coating, or remove the rest)

Any ideas or solutions besides target practice with my 9MM?
I think I'm going to cry now....what a waste.

[jabarnutcase]

jabar....you must be so desperate to make that Monitor usable you would probably try just about anything huh?

Yes, just about anything.

Try some paint thinner! I mean, what have you got to lose? The thing is toast anyway!

No go...believe it or not, already tried that....didn't do a thing.

Hmmmmm....and I take it you tried rubbing REALLY hard with the "safe" liquid that started removing the coating in the first place, right?

Yep....didn't do a thing. Made the rest of the monitor shine beautifully, but wouldn't remove any more of the coating.

If it were me, I would even try some of the stuff they say NOT to use, like certain alcohol based products.

Tried that too...just makes no sense at all how that one area got ruined but no more of it will come off.

Boy. Sorry jabar. I've run out of ideas.
With a little luck, someone else will come along with a suggestion that may work.

That sure would be nice. I REALLY hate to trash the thing.
I just can't look at it the way it is though.

(EDIT) OK, I know I'm being downright silly now....but I'm obsessed!
I'm thinking surely I'm not the only one that this has happened too.
Actually found one possibility in the Link below.
(Scroll down to the letter: May I take your coat(ing)?

Interesting....I may go buy some rubbing compound tomorrow.
This is serious stuff! A solution may help someone with a similar dilemma in the future!
http://www.dansdata.com/danletters073.htm

Lets use our investigative powers!

[Fruss Tray Ted]

JB,
Save yourself from going to the hardware store (No, not the one with pc's. The one with Nuts and Bolts. Not the program, the screws I didn't mean that eyeither..). Rubbing compound was named for the result of rubbing one's eyes in trying to see a monitor that has had rubbing compound tried on it (been there, done that). Done well or not, it will make you think you need a cataract operation and you'll bug your doc into hysterics trying to fix your monitor err eyes!

The etchings or ink on the front of my monitor show ViewSonic 17 What's your serial number?

I use water and paper towels. There's no hi-tech cleaners here. Oh yeah, dish soap.

[jlreich]

Hey Jabar. I'm just curious if you ever figured out what it was that was spilled on the monitor in the first place??

[Budfred]

It seems like contacting ViewSonic and asking what they would do would be your safest bet....

[jabarnutcase]

Hehe...yes FTT, maybe the rubbing Compound isn't such a good idea.
If you read the letter in that link though, it apparently worked for that guy.
Interesting also is this from the "article":

It seems that all good quality coatings are applied with a kind of Electro-Plasma process under very precisely controlled conditions, which causes the coating to be deposited in such a way as to create a molecular bond between the glass and the coating compound. The resulting surface is then supposed to be at least as hard as the parent glass and therefore very durable

Makes the coating pretty tough to remove then huh? NOT!!!

And jlreich...like the guy in my link, what I was seeing was a very small part of the Coating missing already and mistook it for something else.
Maybe it was just a weak area on the screen and all the years of cleaning finally took its toll.

And Budfred....

It seems like contacting ViewSonic and asking what they would do would be your safest bet....

Funny you should mention that....I sent them an mail even before my post. Don't expect much sympathy though. Even a reply of any kind would be surprising.

Been quite a while since I fired my Pistol....
Then at least I'll be able to "view sonic" BOOMS!

Hey, but thanks for replying guys. Maybe I'll stop talking to myself for a while.

Well, you better!
OK! I will!
Good!!!

[jabarnutcase]

Well, only took them a day to respond. Not bad!
Here is the reply from Viewsonic:

Thank you for contacting ViewSonic Technical Support.

There is not a product specifically for taking off the coating, but any type of ammonia or alcohol based products do damage the coating, so you can start with these types of cleaners.

Regards,

ViewSonic Technical Support
ViewSonic Corporation
381 Brea Canyon Road
Walnut, CA 91789

Hehhe....Helpful aren't they? "Been there, done that".

Now if they had insisted on sending me a brand new Monitor, theoretically, they could have made thousands more in sales.....I would have bragged about how great they were to everyone I know!

I must say though.....you should have seen that sucker shatter into a Million pieces when it was hit with a 9mm Hollow Point!!!

First shot too!

(I had my Son play "Taps" on the Electric Guitar)
If only "Jimi" could have been there.....

[Mark Miller]

So really, what are going to with the monitor?
Or is it driving you crazy just looking at it.
by the way dell has some great sales going on for lcds
Or they did as of yesterday.
One can only hope.
www.dell.com

[jabarnutcase]

Hi Mark

So really, what are going to with the monitor?

You think I was kidding in post above?

I live out is the sticks....I can shoot a gun off my back Deck and nobody cares....nothing but Woods for Miles.

Or is it driving you crazy just looking at it.

Precisely why I did what I did...don't even have to think about it anymore! What a relief!

I have quite a few Monitors kicking around...The Viewsonic I disconnected the minute it happened. No way could I look at that.
Not even for another second!

Thanks for the link Mark.
I actually have one LCD. I'm more of a CRT man myself though.
(Mostly because of the cost!)

[Mark Miller]

Rolf,
If I shot off a gun here in any direction including up, I would hit 30 people.
I'm with you though if it's bothering me get rid of it.
My wife on the other hand would keep it "just in case" In case of what I have never figured out
lol

[Fruss Tray Ted]

JB,
Remind me never to annoy you when I'm over to your place, heck even when your over to my place for that matter

I have gone down to my 'target range' on the outskirts of town which is really a gravel pit that the owner allows preseason hunters to sight in their arms and have found blown up pc's, monitors, 20# propane cylinders and lots of other junk. When I leave, I take it all with me and dispose of it properly. I don't want him closing the gate as I cannot sight in my reloads at my home intown. The owner did close it one season and it was a PIA finding alternate places to sight-in. Once it was open again I was relieved. Now I police it even better so it won't happen again. Hopefully...

Me and a buddy saw the propane guys trying to leave without picking up their trash and we called them on it and asked them to haul it off. My buddy is all of 350# so the other guys complied for fear of being sat upon.

[saphalline]

Originally Posted by jlreich

Hey Jabar. I'm just curious if you ever figured out what it was that was spilled on the monitor in the first place??

I'm thinking that whatever was spilled onto the monitor in the first place probably "ate" the coating. When you tried to clean it off, you spread it around and took off more coating (but cleaned off the spilled mess also). Further attempts to use your "safe" cleaner failed because it was no longer mixed with the spilled stuff.

That's my theory, anyway.

[jabarnutcase]

Don't worry FTT....I promise never to come to your house with my Pistol when I'm annoyed.....unless I'm REALLY annoyed.

And saphalline...that's a good theory. I thought of that too.
Although I just can't imagine what could have possibly spilled. And whatever it was, what I was seeing was definitely a tiny area where the coating was already missing and I just made it bigger.

Still, you may be right. Even though it already did it's damage, whatever residue was left may have been "mixing" with my "safe" stuff.

All in the past now.....
It was probably time to put it to rest anyway.

Only after I moved a 17" "SyncMaster'" up to this Computer did it dawn on me how quietly this Monitor comes out of standby compared to the Viewsonic. It's virtually silent.
The Viewsonic had a pretty loud "surge" when it kicked in, (almost dimming the lights a bit!)
Like a giant old TV Set. It may not have been long for this world anyway.

My only regret now is the sorrow I feel for anyone who suffers through this entire thread, having learned nothing from my experience other then to never go near me when I have a loaded Pistol.

[John0904]

Wish I would have seen this thread earlier.

There are several options here.

1. Use a anti-glare filter.
2. Use a product that might restore the anti-glare material such as: Glare Busters
3. Remove the rest of the anti-glare material off and use the above suggestions.
4. Remove the rest of the anti-glare material off and just turn down the monitor brightness and avoid sunlight.

[jabarnutcase]

Appreciate the reply John.
However, I doubt very much anything would have helped.
The thought off an anti-glare filter crossed my mind, but would have only been effective if I were able to remove ALL of the Anti-Glare material.

And believe me, I tried everything under the sun to do that.

Remove the rest of the anti-glare material off and just turn down the monitor brightness and avoid sunlight.

Yes, as you can see, that was my plan in the original post. I was just unable to remove the material.

A filter without removing the material still would have looked bad. And while "Glare Busters" shows some promise, even that would not have fixed the screen good enough for my liking.
(If I tried to add material to only the bad area, it would have shown I'm sure).

Which brings me back to square one.....completely removing the old material first. I finally gave up.

Sure had a lot of fun putting the thing out of its misery though.

Thanks again for the thoughts.

[rond36]

The anti-glare coating on a monitor is lacquer based very much like a tinted clear-coat automotive finish

Your wife didn't paint her nails or remove her nail polish at the computer did she?
( If you think she may have, give the 9mm to a friend or neighbor before you ask her about it)

I have heard that nail polish remover will remove the anti-glare coating from a monitor although I haven't tried it. Acetone may remove it too but would dry much to fast to work with, lacquer thinner may work better and it dries slower.

Don't try this at home

The monitor will need to be disassembled

(exposing you to electric shock hazard from charged capacitors)

because all of the above solvents will also attack the plastic case of the monitor

[jabarnutcase]

Hehe....thanks for the reply rond36.
However, as you can see from above posts, it's all irrelevant now.

The "pieces" of the Monitor are long gone.

For the record though.....

1. My wife doesn't even know what a Computer is. She refers to it as "That thing". (Like: "What are you doing with that thing now???")

2. Funny you should mention it. I actually DID try Nail Polish remover, Acetone AND lacquer thinner. (Not to mention everything else under the Sun).

Nothing seemed to work. (And being somewhat of a perfectionist, it would have had to turn out PERFECT anyway for me to be able to use it).

I'll let something drive me nuts to a point, then it's time to get the Pistol out.
Not to worry, I only shoot at "things", not people.

My only hope now is that nobody else suffers through reading this entire boring thread.

[karlomac]

I have a laptop with the anti-glare coating and have experienced similar troubles, albeit mine started with an attempt to clean my screen with Windex. It seemed logical of course, to attempt to remove the rest of the coating with more Windex and hopefully achieve a uniform look for my screen. For some reason though, I wasn't able to remove any more of the coating. It seems that the stuff is really tough. This makes sense though, considering the application process described above. For such a durable substance, however, it seems very strange that it would be so succeptible to glass cleaner, leaving me with fuzzy smudges in several locations. The stuff should be either uniformly strong or uniformly weak. I have a nagging suspicion that in general, the coating is uniformly strong, save for a few radomly chosen locations designated to be weak points. The companies that apply these coatings to their displays must know of peoples' tendencies to clean their screens with Windex. I'm guessing that they might figure that by making the coating vulnerable to breakdown in a few locations, they can make some money in either repairs or replacements. Paranoid?

[Budfred]

I'm guessing that they might figure that by making the coating vulnerable to breakdown in a few locations, they can make some money in either repairs or replacements. Paranoid?

Yes, I am afraid so... Any manufacturing process has a certain amount of failed installs and these are just an example of the ones that got through the inspecting process because they looked like they were okay... No company that hopes to be around for repeat business is not going to intentionally turn out garbage...

[John0904]

Originally Posted by jabarnutcase

My wife doesn't even know what a Computer is. She refers to it as "That thing". (Like: "What are you doing with that thing now???")

LOL. I know what you mean.
The funny part is that it's only a rhetorical question too.
If you hint at even trying to answer the question, it is like deer in headlights. Dazed and confused.

[satman_1]

jabarnutcase, just wondering if you solved your problem? i had the same problem as you. my kids put a bunch of sratches in the middle of my screen then last night, as i was cleaning the finger prints off the monitor i made it worse. i now had a hole in the anti glare about 10 cm in diameter right in the middle of the screen. it was driving me nuts. so i searched google and stumbled across this thread. here is what i did to fix my little problem:

- 1 SOS pad (steel wool with detergent in it)
- nail polish remover

soak the SOS pad with nail polish remover and scrub hard for 30 minutes. the detergent in the pad forms a nice abrasive paste with the remover. i now have a nice bright, scratch free monitor screen.

[Bonnie]

I had the same problem as jabarnutcase.
I read the thread and was ready to Buy a new monitor.
Then I said what the hect and went to work and fixed it.
Nothing would touch the coating.
Then I thought I would scrape it off with a razor blade.
I was shocked to fine the coating was about the thickness of my fingernail.
When I got a little loose the underneith was clear.
So I scraped and tug at loose ends until it was all off.
I was down to the glass. I don't have to get a new monitor.
I figured I saved a couple of hundred.
But I missed a chance to move up to a new monitor.
Removing the coating can be done if your are carefull.
Bonnie

[jabarnutcase]

Good show Bonnie! (And satman_1 too).
(Obviously, you both have more patience than I do).
And welcome to the PC Guide Forums....although it's possible we may never see you guys again.
(Too bad, this is a great place).

Anyway, the reason for this post is that I am finding this very amusing all of the sudden.
Back when I had this problem, I searched high and low and could find very little information out there.
It's pretty funny that we have had three people now(that I know of), in two different threads find this thread from a Google search.......check it out- First "hit".
Remove Anti-glare Coating?
I knew I wasn't the only person out there with a problem like this!

(The link that is two below my thread in the Google search is pretty funny too (from the "Firing squad Forum").
He mentions reading about "some guy" who had a similar problem and ended up destroying his Monitor.....that guy would be me.
Wow! I'm famous~ (Not hardly)

Hey, at least now people will get a "Google Hit" when they run into this problem...compliments of yours truly.

With a few possible solutions to boot! (Compliments of other people)

[ataribaby]

This is *the* thread for anti-anti-glare coating... Respect and congratulations jabarnutcase for founding it (but ease off the gun-toting old chap - 'Bowling for Columbine' and all that ).

I found this thread on google about a month ago - the only refuge for punters with ant-anti-glare problems to unite. Since I solved my problem, I felt duty-bound to register and share the love with you guys. Remember you're not alone. Anti-glare bald spots can happen to the best of us at some point in our lives. But remember Bobby Charlton. The comb-over is not the answer. Don't try and hide it - admitting you have an anti-glare problem is half the battle.

My dad had the same problem. A roughly 60mm patch in the centre of his monitor screen with no coating. He too is fond of his monitor - a 1999 Iiyama BVision Master Pro 410 (you can see it in his eyes when he says he chose the computer especially because of the monitor - quality). We both had the same brainwave - to get rid of the rest of the coating to acheive uniform brightness. So as I was home for Christmas I set to work to restore the old girl back to her former beauty. The anti-glare coating on this monitor is microns rather than the kind of figernail-thickness of Bonnie's. That must have been a b*st*rd to get rid of

I tried Windowlene spray (solvent - maybe alcohol - based window cleaner). It shifted a bit of coating but VERY slowly. Then I tried a pricey little number - a citrus based solvent for cleaning CPUs. It smelt a bit better, but same slow shifting power. Then me and dad went commando and hit the garage for hardcore products. White spirit was similarly naff so it looked like solvents weren't going to be the way forward. I was getting worried I wasn't going to see Christmas at the rate the coating was coming off. The screen looked a whole lot worse for having been scrubbed with all kinds and my hands were beginning to stink of rough booze. Still, dad was being really brave about the whole thing (I'd have been bricking it if any of those products had been within spitting distance of my own beloved 19" Samsung 957).

The roughness of the cloth I was using seemed to make the most difference to the rate at which the anti-glare was coming off so I thought something more abrasive might do the job. I'd tried a yellow duster, a rough cleaning cloth and ended up using paper kitchen towel (remembering how rough it feels on your arse when you've run out of loo roll and kitchen towel's all you've got for the task). So I tried a bit of T-Cut - a cream for restoring car paintwork - and that seemed to be a bit faster.

So I went back to the cupboard under the kitchen sink and dug out a couple more bottles - Mr Muscle oven cleaner and Cif Cream kitchen and bathroom cleaner. After hefting the two bottles and looking at my mum for backup (even I balked at the idea of using oven cleaner on a monitor) we decided to test the Cif on a piece of old mirror to see whether it'd scratch glass. It was fine. With a nice even coating of Cif on a flat wad of paper towel, the anti-glare coating was coming off at a reasonable rate. After about 40 min the whole screen was bare glass and smooth as. The corner bits were a bit tricky but just keep rubbing away with an evenly coated flat piece of towel and you can't go wrong.

The monitor's cool now - bright and even. We thought we might have to get a seperate anti-glare screen to hang in front of it but it doesn't need it, honest. After 5 years of use the CRT gets duller anyway, so emoving the anti-glare actually kicks a bit of punch back into a display I reckon. So there you go. Take courage and just do it fellow anti-anti-glarers. You won't regret it.

P.S. as a footnote I just realised that you might not have the same brands available in the states so here's a link to the Cif/Unilever website to get an idea of the kind of stuff I used:

http://www.unilever.co.uk/ourbrands/brand_cif.html

Cif cream is a creamy, mildly-abrasive bathroom/kitchen cleaner and feels a little rough in your fingers (as if it's full of tiny particles). It can feel very mildly 'gritty'. At least it smells better than the solvent crap I tried. I'm sure you can find something similar anyway. Good luck and goodbye.

A.B. x

[pentachris]

jabar, it looks like you've founded the Cult of the Anti-Glare!



That was an amusing read, ataribaby. Any other testimonials from cult members?