Windshield Repair Forum

When heat is applied during the repair, the heat makes the leg or legs appear to be filled. When the repair is allowed to cool the legs magically reappear due to the fact they were never filled. They just closed due to the excessive heat.

Just too add, another thing that I noticed is that I been using a resin which is a few years old. Not sure if that effects the appearance of the legs.

Start at the impact hole and drill sideways toward the leg which will not fill
Pop a bullseye. When you have drilled to the correct depth, the bullseye should occur easily. If not, you are not deep enough.
The bullseye should connect to the unfilled leg.
Next fill as usual.

Thanks for all the great advice. Just curious, how often do you guys come across a leg not filling on your repairs?

TGD wrote:Thanks for all the great advice. Just curious, how often do you guys come across a leg not filling on your repairs?

It is extremely rare for me.

Not often, but it occured yesterday. On a Chevy Impala. One leg just didn't want to fill. As a standard we dry out first to make sure that there's no moisture (we dry out all seasons, even on ''dry'' sunny days). Next, we did all the tricks, heating, flexing etc. We've removed the injector and used the drill (a very, very, rare situation, we normally do not drill) but to no avail. It sucked. We ended deciding to fill the damage, cure it and then drill that one stubborn leg, fill and cure it. It came out perfect (too bad for that drill hole tough).

BTW: It was a bright sunny day here in Detroit. And yes...we use UV blockers, to eliminate premature curing (another standard step we use, all season, any day.
It may have been a weird form of stress in the windshield that caused the damage to tighten up. Again: it came out good after all. Customer was happy and so were we.

Sometimes you can get what looks like a 1/2 leg only when looking under very close inspection it is a 1/4 inch leg. The next 1/4 is separate but starting so close to the other part it looks as one. -----------
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Something like that but much much closer, even with a magnifying glass it is hard to see.

I have never tried a heat sink, do they work well? They don't crack out the star like a piece of snow or ice does?

Sometimes the legs look larger to the customer because upon flexing the legs spread a bit. So if one leg can't be filled, it gives the customer the impression that it was better before.