Fear the drill and tap??

[RonLove]

I am new to windshield repairs and my main concern is having to drill and tap glass with a nail, it seems crazy! I know it is probably no where near as bad as it seems, but I am intimidated. I see videos and it sounds/looks pretty wild. Any advice? my wife is also afraid of this. I know that with a bit of practice we will be fine, but I am worried currently. Thank you.

[Boris]

Still being relatively new as well take this for what it's worth. To me it's a matter of finding the 'sweet spots' of how much to drill & how hard to tap. Which depends on where & why you're doing this. Is it to open up a break, terminate a crack, a leg won't fill? Tapping is a matter of feel. You're not hammering a nail but you're not disarming a bomb either. But like you said just takes practice.

The problem I have most when drill/tap is the leg/crack runs past the bullseye. Getting better though.

[NMChipTech]

Just like anything else it takes practice. Delta kits has a tool to measure depth of the drill hole to perfect this process. I am old school, learned this trade in the early 90s so I still do mine by feel. Get a used windshield and practice. I use to ask ws replacers for their scrap glass, they were more than happy to get it off their truck.

[RonLove]

I highly recommend practicing on scrap windshield until you are getting consistant results every time. Using a slide hammer or spring hammer in conjunction with a tapered .047 carbide bur will take much of the guesswork out of it. My preference is the spring hammer because your only concern is how deep to drill the hole and there is even a built in depth gauge to help with that and I can make mini bullseyes that look almost identical all day long. Others prefer the slide hammer as you have more control over the size of the bullseye.

Using the spring hammer most technicians are comfortable with the procedure after 10-20 practice procedures.

The hardest thing for many technicians is to find the true end of the crack and to drill to the correct depth. If you get those two things dialed in, drilling and popping a bullseye is not so scary.

[Boris]

Spring hammer looks like it would be handy. Especially for the legs that don't cooperate.

[kennycrane]

I prefer the slide hammer, just allows me to use the amount of impact that I am comfortable with. When attempting to stop a crack one word of advice, first thing make sure that the crack is on outside layer of glass and not on inside layer. You can usually do this with a probe, fingernail or razorblade. Better to find out first than after you have told customer that you can repair it.

[SanAntonioWindshield]

I still fear it after 6 years..

[Wayneious]

Hit a dismantling yard, or a glass shop, pick up a Toyota windshield for 20-30 bucks.

Build yourself a stand like this:



Drill and Tap all day gents.

Note: Build the stand out of at least 1 1/2" and not 1" like I did

[Brent Deines]

That's a great stand! We've built a number of PVC stands over the years and always find the larger the tubing the mor stable it is. Never built anything like yours however, very nice.

[Windshield911]

Just make sure windshield isn't too hot. Tapping a star break doesn't bother me but I do get a little nervous still when tapping a long crack.