Windshield Repair Forum

Hi Ive been told that small cracks that are more or less a straight line (NOT a Star) going out both sides of the impact point are called bat wings? So do you drill and pop a bulls eye in these? Larger ones 1/2" and up seem to fill ok. The small ones 1/4", 1/8" seem to be a problem. Im just wondering if a rule of thumb is on very small cracks like this, drill and pop? Ive been practicing my poping... not that hard when you get the feel!!

What was the? lol.

I just did 2 back to back. I popped one and just filled the other. The popped one looked much better in the end. I am now a popper on all small batwing breaks.

Hope this helps a bit,

Sean

I generaly just drill to the center pressure/vac cycle a couple times and they become damn near invisible (I tend to use my LR injector on bats)

Once you pop, you can't stop.

Ok..that was corny. I never popped any repairs before and mine came out fine. I just played around with the crack using the blue plastic stick from Delta or use the scribe.

I had two jobs today that had small batwings. On the first, I just done a couple vaccum and pressure cycles and applied a little heat from the inside with my minnie torch. The problem with this one was that as soon as I applied the flame (only for about 2 to 3 seconds), the batwing grew from the original 1/2' to about 1 1/2 inches on each side of the point of impact The only reason that I applied the heat at all was because I was not getting all of the air to vaccum out of the damaged area. On the second vehicle, the batwing appeared identical to the first but vacuumed and filled perfectly. And yes, when I saw the first batwing start cracking out, I did ride a little higher in the seat

Drill and pop every time this speeds up the filling process also means you will need less pressure when pushing the resin in because you have opened up the break, this lessens the chance of the repair running.

In hot weather 70 degrees or more I hardly ever pop. When it's cold I pop them all!! Take it for what it's worth but there is a diffrence in cold repairs and hot repairs all resin flows better when it's warm.

Happy Repairing

Brian

2 years ago I started Popping the batwings and I absolutly love the results. I now always pop them.
David
Coitster

"Once you go whack, you'll never go back"

I tend to side with Repair 1 about popping bullseyes in hot weather or hot shield conditions.

Unless you totally cool down shield before popping, you'll always chance taking that 1/4" repair and turning it into a 2"-3" split. How much time do you think it takes to cool down a 120 degree shield to 70-80 degress? 5-10 minutes is probably the norm depending on your method. Yes, you can save time by popping but what have you really saved on total repair time? Not much really! During the summer months here, my normal repair is 5-8 minutes. In the fall and winter months it will increase to 10-15 minutes only because resins thicken and flow slower. That's when I'll start popping those buggers.

I'm not suggesting this to others..... but I personally don't cool down shields anymore in the summer.(takes to much time) I've found by using proper stem, probe and injector pressure and using the right resin everything will fill. Most of the time I accomplish this without even drilling.

If you think popping a batwing will save you repair time....go for it!

Just make sure if shield is hot you cool before you pop