Technical Question .. Long Crack Repair .Flushing the Crack

[jeff1216]

Is it possible and does it do any good to do the following??


I have been faced with a few long crack repairs lately... They are pretty old cracks and are dirty. If I use the crack expanders to open the crack a little .. Then use a syringe to flush the expanded crack with denatured alcohol... Does it do any good or am I just wasting my time??

Please discuss.......

[Frank EU]

Good question and logical thinking! We have invested a lot of time in things like this, several liquids were used, compressed air was being used, and it just showed not to be justifying all the time, effort and materials to do it. Let me be clear here; we are repair only (no glass sold), so we have and one objective only....to perform repairs. Yet, long cracks that are not fresh are too much a pian in the neck and for us not worth dealing with. Why not just stopping it from cracking further?

[screenman]

I do a lot of long cracks due to the type of vehicles I work on, however I will not do a dirty crack. If I did I feel it would make my customers place less urgency on getting it repaired. It would be a case of lets leave it a while to see if it gets worse.

How do I know that small chip will become a long crack, I have no idea. However I do not that most long cracks started life as a small chip.

[jeff1216]

Appreciate the way you guys do business... But lets stick to the question at hand. (I have a certain company that has a ton of cracks... I do not promote long crack repair). Now.... Back to the question. Will this method do any good or not? I have roughly 50 plus cracked windshields that I need to start dealing with Monday AM. It is a 350 vehicle fleet... I have 75 or 80 stone chips to take of also with same company. I got that handled Gonna be a busy month

[screenman]

No it will not work also I would not like to introduce to much solvent into the laminate, whilst on this subject the best and quickest way to dry out long cracks is with compressed air. Having tried and used the Novus crack cleaning system years ago I feel my comments have some depth of knowledge with them. I would say trying to clean out long cracks is certainly wasting your time, I hope also you alredy have a lot of experience with long crack repair as going into a new large customer and doig repairs that are likely to fail wil not do you any good.

Sorry Mr Customer those repairs are way too old for us to carry out a reliable repair and I suggest you change the screen/shield. Way better than you doing abundle of repairs and some failing, I can tell you which one's they will notice.

Sorry to have taken your post off line again, but I hope someone else may gain from what I have written even if you do not.

[Brent Deines]

Here we go again. Alcohol should never be allowed to come in contact with the PVB (laminate). It will soften the PVB and even melt it if left in contact long enough. This fact is very easy to prove, and anyone who has ever cut laminated glass already knows it. Some people will use all kinds of solvents and other cleaners to flush out cracks, but I would not recommend this practice...ever. You never know what the effect the residue will have on the resin long term. In some of our experiments we have used plain water and compressed air to wash contaminates out of a crack, but found that although it worked as well as alcohol and other solvents, but without the danger of destroying the PVB, it was not all that effective. It also required the tedious task of drying out the crack before proceeding with the repair.

Very dirty cracks they are typically found in old windshields where the glass is already beginning to separate from the laminate and/or the laminate has begun to discolor. These I would definitely turn down. Before I bought my glass shop I was repair only so I didn't walk away from many repairs, but with my reputation on the line with every repair I would rather turn down work than do something that might tarnish that reputation. Not every break is repairable.

I agree with Frank and screenman, it's better to walk away from some repairs, even though that sometimes means walking away from money.

[jeff1216]

I agree to everyone that has posted and thanks. There are some cracks with this company that I have already turned away from. I owned one of the largest full service glass shops in my state for over 10 years. I have been in this industry for almost 17 and doing repairs for about 8 years now. I will be the first to admit that I never really focused on crack repair before. This is not a new customer for me... I have probably replaced 300 windshields for them over the last 10 years. I only do repairs now... I just got tired off all the big glass shop headaches... Had 22 employees less than 6 months ago and 11 trucks on the road.... Decided that $$ is not everything. I am going to enjoy life for a bit and support my family doing repairs only ..... Dang see that????? Now I have gone and taken this thread off track. LOL

[screenman]

Quality of life is the way to go, and chasing the $ or £ is not everything. Although my answers stay much the same on long cracks it is amazing how the whole picture of your deal looks different.