Stubborn Repair

[bjebberger]

Generally my repairs have been going pretty well until today that is.
Any advice offered by others would be greatly appreciated.

The damage itself certainly looked repairable although it was a little different. It was a bulls eye but with a very small crack just below the bulls eye but I wouldn't define it as a combination break. Anyway the impact point was quite evident. I qualified by asking age of damage, It was less than a week old. The vehicle had been inside for several hours and the tempeture of the w/s was 60 degrees. I probed the impact point and cleaned it out with a soft bristled brush. I removed any apparent moisture and went into a vacuum mode. I left my injector in the vacuum mode longer than usual because there were quite a few air bubbles moving into the injector. When the bubbles stopped I moved into the pressure mode. The resin quickly filled the bullseye but not the small crack under the bullseye. I backed off the pressure to see if it would allow resin to flow better. It did not help. I put pressure on the inside of the w/s in both vacuum and pressure mode. Didn't work. I probed and pressured the crack with my probing tool, still no sucess. I even heated ( slightly) under pressure and vacuum. I did 5 vacuum/pressure cycles for over 4-8 minutes each. No matter what I tried, short of drilling, nothing worked. If you are wondering why I didn't drill it was because the drill mark would have left a bigger blemish than was already there with the crack. The bullseye came out ok customer was happy but that little crack drove me nuts!!
What could I have done differently or what didn't I do properly? Any suggestions or ideas?
Thanks to all in advance.

[GlassStarz]

You dont drill a bull only clean up then fill which is what you did with a combo you need to break out the drill.
A bull is really a cone or funnel shaped break in the glass so drilling doesnt do you any good but sometimes a crack or break shows up underneath it when the funnel was made it closed the opening that would let you push the resin into it bringing the need to drill into play drill in the center clean the drill hole with your probe to insure you havnt blocked the access to your bull and pump the resin to it as usual

[glassdoctor]

Also,

If there was moisture in the bullseye that you had to remove, then likely there was moisture in the adjacent legs that did not get removed. If so, that's a problem of course.. will make it difficult to fill and look good.

If all else fails, drill it (the stubborn crack area) if that will get the job done. It's much much much better to have a drill hole and a nicely filled crack that an unfilled crack and no drill hole, even it is just a small one.

[Sneck]

Definately drill the crack, and while your at it, pop a mini bull just to make sure that a nice pocket of air now exists connecting the crack to the large bull/combo. Fill the crack and work your repair from that drill hole. If the bull/combo does not fill completely, then finish with repairing from the bull/combo.

[GlassStarz]

pop a mini? dude the things already got 2 breaks in one spot how many do you need? if you cant fill a bull with an underlying crack without popping another bull you need to look into different employment.
The bullseye is the absolute easiest fill there is and once you have given access to the crack by drilling your there
By the way 4 + years several thousand chips and never popped a bulleye to help me its not needed adding another break is just plain lame if you use your equipment properly take the needed time sometimes you still need to drill but never add another break IMP its just the lazy or untrained guys way out dont hurry take your time and do it right its easy

[Dave M]

Wow! That would mean that a lot of us on this forum (even the ones with 10-20 years) are lazy and untrained. Let's see......I've been repairing for 12 years, popping lots of mini bulls-eyes and my last refund or dissatisfied customer was........hmmmmm, I'll have to look at my records. Get back to you on that one!!

[Sneck]

The way I understand bjebberger...

The resin quickly filled the bullseye but not the small crack under the bullseye.

... I understood that he was having difficulty filling a crack connected to the bullseye. And since the bullseye filled quickly, and no resin went to the crack, that quite possibly the crack was too tight or closed off where it connects to the bullseye. So my recomendation would be to drill the crack where it connects to the main bullseye, but also pop a mini so that the crack would shurly be connected to the main bullseye break and therefore he should be able to fill with no problems. Just like when you sometimes need to pop a mini in a star break to connect the legs to the main break -- same thing.

With that said, a picture is worth a thousand words. If I saw the break in person I might change my repair procedure based on what I "see".

[Bill D]

Delta,
I am offended by Glass Starz post. As a newbie, he assumes to know this business and doesn't know all damage is not the same, nor what is required to repair a bulls with an underlying crack.
Sneck-I think you are new also, but don't believe all posters. Good luck.

[northidahotim]

Let me ask you guys about popping a mini in a star. How do you know when to. Do you try the repair and see if it fills first. Or when you get a star go straight for the drill.

[repare-brise]

Bill D

Yes he sometimes has an attitude problem(for having been the target of a few ripe comments), but being a public forum all opinions are equal, just some must be taken for what they are worth. As for mini bulls eye they are an effective tool for creating a stopping point for a crack, helping in filling minute "moustache" breaks, and connecting dammage, I may not have many years experiance, but having close to 20 techs working with/for me at any given time, we have amassed a fair bit of experiance, and we use mini bulls eye with excellent results.

Tim

We don't automaticly dive for the drill when we see a star, about the only dammage we drill and mini bulls eye is the tight little breaks that area line about 3/8-5-8 long under a small impact point(the ones that most people don't even know they have). The smaller the line the harder it will be to fill in general, but the mini BE allows the resin room to enter, and it"relaxes" the glass helping penetration. For larger stars about the only time we drill is to pop a mini BE at the end of a leg that is uncomfortably long(more for piece of mind than anything else). And we must not forget the Mini BE at the end of a crack to act as a stopping point.

At Your Service

PS It would be nice if posting pics on the forum were slightly easier(direct from files, and not from web), it would allow us to help diagnose problems a little easier.