A question about long cracks limitations on ROLAGS

[puka pau]

BrightFastWSR;

Did you use a crack expander/opener/jack tool to open the crack?

Cheers;

Puka Pau

[SeeClearly]

Puka Pau:

I have no problems, just stating my opinion. Not sure where you came up with that, but by your list of questions and the seemingly agressive response, you might want to take a look within. I will not get into all the logistics of your questions, since I am not obliged to do so. You should really learn how to address people to get proper responses from them. Honey is much sweeter than vinegar.

What I will say is that we have done our fair share of cracks in the MANY years we have been in business. What we have found in our business that it is not worth our time or our customer's money to do cracks longer than six inches. We know our customers pretty well and knowing what they want is part of the service we provide them. We are basically paid to know what they want, and that is what we do. Fair or not fair for anyone else on the forum, that is OUR experience and that is what we find business smart for our company. One can take it or leave it.

Regardless of how we charge for cracks, if we took our normal hourly rate that we typically make doing repairs 6" or under, the customer could replace the windshield several times without being in excess of what we would charge them for doing the longer cracks. As I stated before, for us, it does not make sense.

I will say though, there are a few circumstances where it can make sense. If it is a very expensive windshield that one is repairing long cracks on such as a RV, OR the technician is paid hourly, OR the technician has a very very low overhead OR is simply looking to put a few extra bucks in their pocket, it may make sense. For us though, and I hope I have simplified it enough for you to understand, that is not how we conduct business. We simply pass on the cracks longer than six inches.

****DISCLAIMER: All opinions in this response are the sole opinions of SeeClearly and may not reflect the opinions of others on this forum!*****

[BrightFastWSR]

Puka Pau:

I have no problems, just stating my opinion. Not sure where you came up with that, but by your list of questions and the seemingly agressive response, you might want to take a look within. I will not get into all the logistics of your questions, since I am not obliged to do so. You should really learn how to address people to get proper responses from them. Honey is much sweeter than vinegar.

As I am not a native speaker of English, I did not know my way to asking questions would made people uneasy. Thank you very much for your reminding. I am sorry about it. In fact, I learnt a lot in windshield repair from this forum and I am grateful to everyone who answering my questions.

By the way, yes, I use 3 crack expanders when I do the reapair.

[puka pau]

SeeClearly: I thought my questions were more "probing" than "aggressive". However, everyone is entitiled to his or her own opinion. Sorry if I ruffled your feathers. I was merely attempting to gain some perspective.

Bright Fast: While I obviously have no personal insight to the particular nature of the crack that took six hours to repair I will say that although some cracks take longer to fill than others, six hours (or five hours not including cure time) does seem to be inordinately lengthy. However, I can offer a suggestion regarding curing. A three inch long cure light is probably not the right tool to use to cure a twenty inch crack. Early on in my own crack repair experience I bought an 18 inch flourescent utility light at my local hardware store. I replaced the bulb with a UV bulb (GE # F15T8/BLB) and mounted a suction cup at each end of the unit. This tool requires household current (110 volts AC in the US and Canada) so if you do not have access to household current you need a small inverter to power the unit. I find that this apparatus cures much faster than a 12 volt light and it's the only one I have used for both chip and long crack repair for over twenty years.

It appears that a significant number of technical posts on this list concern long crack repair techniques. So here are a few questions for the list at large - some rhetorical, some not so:

Which one of these three types of damage is most likely to spread to the point that the customer would opt for replacement rather than repair;
A. Bullseye break
B. Star break
C. A ten inch crack
I would hope that we could all agree that item "C" is the one most likely to travel or spread. I would also hope that we could all agree that the primary credo of WSR is "repair, not replace". So the ultimate question is why, in the course of an eight or so hour training program are seven hours or so devoted to repairing garden variety bulleyes and stars and an hour or less to the type of damage that is most likely to invite replacement? And why do many technicians refuse to repair longer cracks at all or restrict themselves to an arbitrary length? And why is it that the ROLAGS specs place an arbitrary length limit on long cracks?

Personally, I don't limit myself to either length of crack or size of damage. And I don't do training so I can't definitively speak to that, but if I was compelled to speculate I would surmise that the answers to these questions would include at least in part a reference to one or more of the "seven deadly sins".

Cheers;

Puka Pau

[mend master]

In reference to the difference between tensile strength and adhesive strength, the simplest way to say it is that the adhesive strength of the resin bond will have a bearing on the tensile strength of the repair. Both are measures of how much stress is required to cause failure. The quality of the repair resin, coupled with the success or failure of removing air and moisture from the break, and a working knowledge and talent for repair, will determine the tensile strength of the repair. Use good resin and proper technique and your repair will be as strong as it needs to be.

[BrightFastWSR]

.... The quality of the repair resin, coupled with the success or failure of removing air and moisture from the break, and a working knowledge and talent for repair, will determine the tensile strength of the repair. Use good resin and proper technique and your repair will be as strong as it needs to be.

Thank you very much,Mend master.

Which is the best opener or jack tool to open the crack??

In my opinion, I don't think there's a best one, but I think it is a necessary tool when you repair long cracks,which will make the resin flow into the crack faster. You can buy a crack expander from Delta kits if you are interested in.