Windshield Repair Forum

Here's my question for the day. When do you consider a leg on a break to be filled? I know it sounds like a silly question but I'm interested in what you guys have to say. See, I was doing some practice repairs tonight, all home-made star breaks. I make them, they have legs coming off of them, most of them with "black" in 'em. So I go about fixing these practice breaks. I watch the resin flow into them, watch the black spots disappear and watch the "shiny" slowly fill in. But when I'm done you can still see very small, dull looking legs coming off of the break. Now, in between my pressure and vacuum cycles I'm watching videos on Delta's website about repairing star breaks. When the star in the Delta video is finished you can't see any legs coming from where the break once was. When I'm done I can see faint "legs" but they are dull and all of the blackness is removed from them. Now, this gets me to thinking: Have I actually filled these legs? Or am I fooling myself? I have always operated under the assumption (and I was "trained" to believe) that if there ain't no black and the leg ain't shiny then it's filled. So how wrong or right am I on this?

Cross refer looking from different angles prior to curing any star break (the 45 /360 rule)

Once you have 'filled' the damage with resin, prior to the curing step, you should look at any crack (so, that is 360 degr all round) and be looking at the individual cracks under an angle of 45 degr. Move your head slightly up and down (say for 10 cm/4 inch) if the crack 'disappears', the crack should normally be properly filled and ready to be UV cured. I would prefer a 'hands on example' and show this to you 'live' to make it more clear, but as you will understand, that is a bit complicated right here Try it yourself, it should work for you >whichever repair system you are using.

And oops, to answer the question: a leg is filled, technically, when you have removed all the air (and moisture) and filled the void with a resin.

Frank EU ! If the crack is surface, coming off the star, I usually flex it with my probe and pull some of the resin into it. That sometimes fills it. Should I be using a mylar or curing tape
to cover it to advoid air creeping back in. I have seen times when everything looked good, and after I cured it, I spot a small black or shinny spec on one of the legs that had looked filled. I try to take my time and look at the cracks from all angles with my magnifying glass prior to filling. I know on long cracks I cover with curing tape, but some of the breaks may have leg cracks less than 1/8" that are stubborn to fill.

If you witnessed the leg fill it is filled,a filled leg does not completely disappear.
On some star breaks the legs will be twisted (veer of sideways from 90 degrees) instead of being exactly 90 degrees to the surface of the glass.(I hate those kind)
When you look straight down on them before a repair they look wider than the fine line of a 90 degree leg and have a dull black look to them.
These will be more noticeable after a repair do to the refraction of light from different angles and may be what you experienced.

I figured I was just freakin' out for no reason. I can clearly watch resin flow into the cracks when I'm doing the repair but I just wanted to make sure. Thanks for the info guys!