To Drill or Not To Drill

[drasmussen]

I recently attended Deltakits training in San Antonio (yesterday) and have not had the opportunity to do my "First) repair. I haven't got my kit from Jeff/Matt yet. My question to all you wsr guys is does drilling or not drilling in the real world affect the repair in any way. (Cosmeticaly or stuctually.)

[drasmussen]

Good point. Delta gave me great hands on training with many different chip/break scenario's. What they taught me worked great so I'll stick with it. Thanks for the advice.

[Almost-New WSR]

I agree. Stick to the basics they taught. We have, and it is paying off. I do, however, remember being advised to drill only when necessary. You may find this to be a valuable sales tool as well. Maybe it is just my personal opinion, and maybe other wsr guys have success drilling, but the repairs just look nicer when you don't drill...and you can still achieve the main goal: a quality repair that you can stand behind!!!

Good luck.

Dave

[GlassStarz]

The better you get a working your injector and recognizing different breaks the less you will need to drill. Learning when to flex a leg or cycle the injector again comes with time and practice. The drill will get you into the break and overcome some of the things but the final product wont look as good. Myself when I started I drilled almost everything over time I have gotten to where I drill maybe one in 10.
Think of the drill like those narcotics they give you when you break something, try not to use it for long and slowly wean youself off of it before your hooked. alot of the things people do with the drill can be done with your probe as well

[repare-brise]

Follow your instructions and use your drill sparingly.

The thing I use it the most for is drilling out repairs done by WS replacment techs, that are "forced to" repair. These(unfortunatly)untrained techs that give WS repair a bad name (because they see it as evil, it takes away a replacement), will even drill a bull's eye. I am called upon by dealers to "improve" these repairs when they send a car to auction(also known as camoflaging the break so that they can get a better price). The other use is drilling to pop a bulls eye at the end of a crack. For the occiasional stubborn star, or isolated leg of a combo break, I will drill but these are rare. As mentioned by GlassStarz, the best form of prevention is abstinance, Use your drill for constructive things like pit polishing.

Merci

[Jeremiahswindshieldrepair]

I drill all my chips (surface drill instead of a pick) and there ain't a WSR tech who can do a better chip than me. Many who can do just as good but none better ... and the non-drilling crowd constantly claim their chips look better ... it just isn't true. I have trained hundreds of people how to repair chips .... literally hundreds, and all my guys and I used to have chip-offs where we would have people compete for how well the chip turned out and how fast we could do them and still have them turn out good and such. I even had prizes to give away. The guy on the forum called Chipmasters (who used to work with me) and myself won all of the contests, and we both drill always.

[JT2]

Well i'll give my input here too, im new to the WSR business and I'm using all Delta Kit products here and we have been practicing on a used windshield here for quite some time and have experimented with different chips/bullseyes and have noticed that some if not all repairs that we don't drill don't turn out that great. It seems that they don't get filled out as much as when we do drill the break. I do agree that when you do drill it leaves a bigger mark on the glass even once filled and pit filled and polished.

For example with a simple bullseye break created with the tool that we bought from Delta Kits to simulate a bullseye, not too much missing piece of glass but an impact point which gets picked with the scribe and have gone ahead without drilling - end result isn't as good as if we drilled it. I don't know, its a touch subject thats been discussed before.

[Jeremiahswindshieldrepair]

it's actually kind of ridiculous that it is such a touchy subject like you said JT2 ... but it really is.

I won't stop talking about it until those who espouse not drilling stop saying that their repairs are better than mine. It is just absurd to say that and actually think you are correct, I think nothing less of the people who think that I just think that they need to see a good quality chip done by me when I drill and they won't be saying it anymore ... oh and I also will do 2 top quality chips to their one because I open it up and make it easier to let the resin flow in half the time. Remember this is a business and financial ramifications also have an effect not just making an unnoticable difference in the direct impact point of a chip. The point of a chip is never and has never been to make it disappear. If you are in the business and still think the chip is going to disappear when you are done you are either new or kidding yourself and have done very few chips. Yes there are some chips that are very difficult to see but a majority have an impact point that looks like a bug on the windshield and lines where the arms are filled up. They don't look perfect and a millimeters difference in the depth of the direct impact point makes NO noticable difference. The only time it makes a difference is if you spiral it all the way down to the laminate and then you have a worm hole effect.
I would rather get 2 chips with a 1 millimeter drill depth to them than 1 chip with no small unnoticable indent in the same period of time because to me I am there to help save the insurance companies money and stop windshields from cracking out. I give 100% in half the time and am very profitable doing so ... that's all that matters to me.

[Almost-New WSR]

Brian, Brian, Brian,

"I won't stop talking about it until those who espouse not drilling stop saying that their repairs are better than mine." Relax, man, Relax. I cannot say that my repairs are better than yours-I HAVE NEVER SEEN ONE OF YOURS! I was merely stating that "around here" I see plenty of drill-technique and they look horrible. This is probably due to the fact that they are not just drilling the impact point, but drilling 'deep and wide' like your worm-hole analogy. I am merely stating overall that my repairs have improved the less I drill. I prefer to use my probe to pick the entrance/impact point because that damn little dremmel head has a mind of it's own. I also never said it disappeared, but it looks ten times better than my competition around here, and I know who's will most likely crack-out first. I know this b/c I have inspected their repairs, see the nasty pit-drill-deep-and-wide and am still able to see their legs flex (aside from the fact they don't look filled at all). It really makes for a great sales opportunity.

I really believe that it is a touchy subject because we make it so by not explaining ourselves enough. Or maybe I haven't read all of your posts to know exactly what you speak of when you say "drill, baby, drill" LOL...

The bottom line, I think, is like you said. Do repairs effectively and efficiently and make them look as good as possible--can't hurt customer satisfaction! You OBVIOUSLY have a good business out there and I know many of us youngsters out here really appreciate your input and wisdom (without sounding like a suck-up)!!!

Happy hunting.

Dave

[a1repair]

Greetings WSR Techs,

My 2 cents on drilling is this. Many, not all stone chips need to be drilled. Just, as, many stone-chips we repair, do not require a bridge, they can be probe-filled. And repaired to perfection I might add.

I repaired a star yesterday, that I would defy anyone to repair it without drilling. You could use WD40, 3in1 oil, water etc., under 1000psi and you would not get any in the star, without drilling. (You'd probably break the glass with kind of pressure )

I humbly agree with Brian J, that at times drilling is neccessary. And he makes a valid point, in that, time is $$, and drilling does help speeds up the process.