Another new member

[Alphadog]

Hello,

I'm a new member here and new to glass repair. I am a 16 year PDR technician with a retail shop. We offered glass repair already, but I sub'd it out. I have a Delta kit and have been practicing on a windshield. I have one rental client and have repaired one windshield for them so far. They seemed happy with the repair.

As a PDR technician I like to get things pretty close to 100% repaired. Glass seems to be different and a percentage of acceptable repair seems to be slightly lower.

I would just like to know what a bad repair looks like. Is there a link or thread on this site that has that? I am still trying to guage what a good repair and a bad repair is.:eusa_eh:

[Brent Deines]

A good repair is one in which all the air has been replaced with resin, but since the severity of the damage varies greatly from break to break, the cosmetic quality of a completed repair also varies even when no air is present. I'm not a good enough photographer to get good photos of breaks, but I hired an engineer to study various repair methods and equipment about a year ago. He took some awesome magnified photos of completed breaks. I'm not sure what happened to them but I'll try to dig them up next week.

I think customers tend to have lower expectations for windshield repair than PDR, so some windshield repair technicians lower their standards to simply meet those expectations. Personally I try to always exceed a customers expectations, but even the very best windshield repair is visible to the trained eye, and more severe damage is going to be more visible. With PDR small repairs are virtually invisible when repaired properly, and severe damage is typically avoided, so I think I understand your need for some clarification.

I have often found that what is acceptable to much of our industry is not acceptable to me. I like to think that many other members of this forum feel the same way.

[Alphadog]

I've got this practice windshield. I made some really good stars with the spring-loaded poker. I fixed one yesterday that created this sea shell shaped bowl, with a number of arms (?). I did the repair. I got a little air in the repair so I had a spot, but looking at the rest, everything filled pretty well. But I could see the lines where the resin filled the fissures. Is that normal? Secondly, the surface of the repair, that just slightly doesn't match the surrounding glass. Is that normal?

[Brent Deines]

It's hard to say without seeing it, but you can typically see a faint line where the cracks were repaired, and yes the filled pit will look slightly different than the glass around it.

Again, I always hesitate to make a judgment call without seeing the break, but other than the air that you already identified as not being removed, it sounds like everything filled properly.

[jayjacque]

Welcome alphadog....
And thought I'd chime in with two bits...
In glass you always (or should always) aim for the near invisible repair. But it's never completely invisible, because there is always even the slightest dot and/or shadow where it was filled and/or a not quite all the way filled line. And then there are old breaks that do not come out looking as good, and extra damage breaks, multiple hits, etc. So you might be aiming for 100% but realistically I always say 80 to 95% hidden. It's a repair, not a brand new windshield, so tell them that up front. And it's saving them a lot of money over replacement. That's our primary selling point. And with experience most do come out looking very good. It's a craft that is simple to do, but a little harder to get good at.

[Alphadog]

Thanks. As with my dent work, I want to strive to be as good as I can.

[Dave M]

Along with the above posts, I would strongly suggest you get some training!

[screenman]

Alpahdog, from one dentman to another, please get some training, these are good words and make sure they teach you how to dry out, in most areas of the world I would say this is the most important part of the job. In the UK it is what shows the difference between a repair tech and a hack job man.

No highs and lows just wet or dry, fully filled or not. I can tell you it is not as hard as PDR to learn but it is still easy to do badly.

Best of luck

[Alphadog]

Actually, I have gotten training from the seller (Delta). These are follow-up questions.

[Dave M]

Sorry, my mistake. I've never taken Delta's training course but I would assume that after taking the course one would know the difference between a bad and good repair!