The monitor is a Iiyama Vision Master Pro 455 CRT 19".
It seems like there is some kind of protective glass on the surface and the actual screen lies about 2cm behind that. Can I just replace that? If not, is there any safe method to remove scratches from glass?
No guarantee, but you might look into using an automotive glass repair kit.
I would check with Iiyama, it could be as simple as a $20.00 part, or maybe not. I wouldn’t know how difficult the actual repair is though. Good luck…
I think you’ll find that that’s just the thickness of the glass - CRT tubes are extremely thick, since they’re basically enormous vacuum tubes. Additionally, there’s usually a non-reflective coating on the front surface, which is probably what you’ve scratched. In my experience, any attempt to polish it out will simply take off more of the coating, making things considerably worse.
There are optical filler style products available for touching up eyeglasses that might help (like this for example), but since they’re not intended for monitors, it’s anyone’s guess as to whether they’ll match well with the coating. I guess it depends where the scratch is and how big it is as to whether it’s worth risking…
Other than touch-screen models, I don’t think anyone’s put anything of a protective nature in front of a CRT in quite a while. Antiglare coatings are just that - coatings - and “safety glass” has been integral to CRTs for decades. (Many years ago, there was a separate piece of glass in front of the tube.)
How deep is this scratch? If it’s deep, you might be facing an implosion hazard.
UPDATE!
I just realised that I can see the “scratches”, but I cannot feel them when touching the screen with my fingers. It seems like I simply scratched the anti-glare coating or something.
Is there any way to completely remove this coating from the surface of my monitor? Will this significantly degrade the image quality?