Windshield Repair Forum

Sneck...since I don't move the vehicle, I sometimes use the mirror to bounce or reflect uv rays onto the repaired area. Works great for me and it concentrates the rays.

Layne, I forgot that I did actually try this a few times some time ago, but at the time, I was uncertain if reflected sunlight from the mirror would help or not.

Now, daytime (or nightime), I use my 12-volt ultra violet light to cure the jobs.

My 12-volt light is powered by a small 12-volt rechargable battery that I purchased locally that is held in place in my tool box by a couple of angle brackets that I made and bolted into place. I bought a female cigarette lighter plug from Napa and drilled a hole in the side of my tool box and installed it. When I use my light, I just connect two wires from the cigarette plug to the battery and plug in the light. I could have just bought a battery pack from Delta, but I'm a project guy and I like to tinker.

I tested this theory and found out that not enough u.v. will penetrate thruogh the windshield to cure your repair from the inside period.

Toab. Don't attempt to cure from the inside. Use a small mirror on the outside...let the sun's rays reflect off the mirror and onto the repair site. The mirror focuses the rays onto the area.

Hmmmmm...this sounds very very interesting as apposed to moving the car all the time.Is this a big mirror that you use ? and do you have to stand there and hold it or do you have a suction cup device to hold it somethin like a p.d.r. light stand?

Novus have been teaching this method since 1985 they use a small mirror on a sucker, works great.

I found some technical info on UV LIGHT.
Next time you get to chatting with your customer and they are curious about your UV Lamp, you can sound like you know what your talking about when you tell him this stuff - Just found it interesting...

UV light, short for Ultraviolet Light, is a type of light energy making up one part of the electromagnetic spectrum, which spectrum includes gamma and x-rays, UV light, visible light, infrared rays, microwaves, and radio waves, listed in order of decreasing frequency and increasing wavelength. UV light thus has a wavelength shorter than that of visible light, and can not be detected by the human eye. While UV light itself is invisible, it causes many substances to glow or fluoresce in a variety of colors visible to the human eye. This ability to make the invisible visible makes UV lamps valuable for mineral prospecting, criminal investigations, postal stamp evaluation, etc.

UV light is divided, at a minimum, into both Shortwave and Longwave radiation. Shortwave UV is produced by low pressure mercury arcs, with a wavelength of 254 nanometers, while Longwave, produced by low to high pressure mercury arcs, has a wavelength of from 320 to 400 nanometers. A nanometer is a unit of length used to define wavelengths of energies in the electromagnetic spectrum, equaling one millionth of a millimeter.

While Longwave UV, sometimes referred to as "blacklight", is safe, Shortwave UV can irritate the eyes and burn the skin, so exposure should be controlled and ideally, UV goggles should be worn to prevent eye damage from inadvertently looking at the light source.

As before stated, UV light directed at certain materials causes fluorescence, originally named after the mineral Fluorite for its blue glow under UV. Phosphorescence is a type of fluorescence that continues even after the UV light is removed. It can last from fractions of a second to weeks. Of the fluorescent minerals, about 80 to 90 % of them fluoresce brighter under Shortwave than under Longwave UV.

And I thought I was just squirting glue in a hole and shining a funny light at it.

Sneck,

Thanks for taking the time to look up and provide all this information on UV's.

Bottom line is simply this......curing with an effeicient UV lamp (which provides up to 10 times the neccessary UV curing for applied resins than the sun) is your best choice!

If you think the sun (big UV bulb in the sky will cure everything) you definately don't understand how chemical resins work with UV and cure!

Pit filler will cure with with normal UV help from sun but please remember, sub surface resin fill requires more than natural Sun UV's can provide.

If you don't believe in anything I'm saying.......just ask your resin supplier!

All their test are mainly done in lab.....with artificial UV lighting.







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