Am I the last one to discover this?

[jayjacque]

First off make me a promise you guys won't laugh. I've been doing windshield repair for I think about 15 years along with other auto reconditioning services much longer. I started W/S in the late 80's or 1990. But took a 3-4 year break. Started back up again a year ago. Anyway enough of that. I'm just saying that to say this, I just learned something so simple. it's weird I didn't get it years ago.

Here's what it is: After scraping a finished repair, just spray the windshield cleaner right over all the shavings that are still on the windshield and then just wipe off. What I did for years was try to gather most of the shavings with my razor blade and shake them on the ground away from the vehicle. Then windexed the remaining few left on. One day about a month ago, I accidently sprayed before I did that and I said, "dang it!" But then discovered the rag easily collected most all the shavings in one or two swipes

I was more or less self taught, so that's not the only elementary thing I learned since coming to this forum, but I don't want to share all my stupid at once!

[screenman]

You can also put a small amount of pit polish on the chip before you scrape this keeps the dust down.

[Brent Deines]

Sometimes it's the little things get over looked. Since I had to learn this from you I guess you are not the last one to discover it. Man, that's hard to admit!

[Mr Bill]

I use a paint brush about as wide as my hand to sweep resin scrapings from the WS. I sawed a couple of inches off the handle to make it more compact.

[starstruck]

I like the brush idea. I think I'd rather be rid of them instead of having them embedded in my cleaning rag. Thanks for the tip mr bill.

[harrellbenjamin]

heck so simple and I just got two great ideas!!

[dgarza]

well slap me silly thats a great idea. I cuss every time I'm wiping those away and all they do is just cling to everything, the vehicles paint, windows, me, ect...
today it was gusting around 30mph here and It still amazes me that they still cling and don't blow away. the only thing I would worry about is getting glass cleaner on the pit before polishing it maybe Brent can chime in to let us know if that could cause a problem.

[jayjacque]

For me anyway the cleaning rag is not a big deal. I do shake it out before using again, and after 2, 3, or 4 repairs change rags

[tooldini]

well I use the shaving when my drop of pit polish runs out to continue polishing my masterpiece they work really well it seems. then I spray and wipe but I have done and still do run my blade over the shaving and shake them off ocasionally

[Brent Deines]

Originally Posted by dgarza

well slap me silly thats a great idea. I cuss every time I'm wiping those away and all they do is just cling to everything, the vehicles paint, windows, me, ect...
today it was gusting around 30mph here and It still amazes me that they still cling and don't blow away. the only thing I would worry about is getting glass cleaner on the pit before polishing it maybe Brent can chime in to let us know if that could cause a problem.

Personally I will continue to polish first, then use the glass cleaner and wipe away the shavings and clean the glass. The glass cleaner won't hurt the unpolished pit, but since you will have to clean the glass last anyway, polishing first may save a few seconds of time. I don't like using paper towels so a quick shake of the rag drops all of the damp shavings to the ground so I can finish cleaning the glass. It's a bit harder to shake out a paper towel, but then again it's easy enough to grab a new one.

A lot of technicians don't use pit polish, or even pit resin for that matter, but I think those are important steps to get the completed windshield repair looking it's best.