A windshield may seem like an ordinary part of your car, but it’s actually designed as a crucial safety feature. When a crack or chip threatens your driver’s visibility while driving, it’s important to have it repaired as quickly as possible to reduce the risk of an accident. While some people try to fix small chips and cracks with epoxy or resin purchased at hardware stores, the best way to repair a windshield is to have it professionally done.
Windshields are made of a special material called laminated glass that can withstand quite a bit of pressure. Unlike standard glass, which can shatter and break easily, laminated glass has a thin layer of plastic between two layers of glass. This makes it much more difficult for an object to penetrate the windshield, and therefore prevents it from being completely shattered when an impact occurs.
Most cracks and chips in a windshield are caused by stones, rocks or other debris that hit the front of your vehicle while it’s moving at high speeds. Even if the force isn’t enough to break the glass, it can still cause significant damage to your windshield, which may impair your vision while driving.
If a stone hits your windshield and leaves a chip in the top layer of glass, this is called a chip pit. Often, chip pits are the result of rock damage and are fairly easy to repair. The key to repairing a chip pit is to ensure that the windshield is clean and dry before beginning.
Technicians will use suction cups over the pit to clean out the area, as well as to pull out any loose glass fragments. They will then prep the windshield by placing a primer on the area. This helps the urethane glue adhere to the glass and prevents the new resin from getting stuck in the pinch weld of your windshield.
Once the primer has dried, the technician will load the resin into a specialized applicator, which looks like a syringe. Depending on the type of windshield repair kit you have, there will be two types of resin, one for filling cracks and one to fill chips. The technician will then firmly press the applicator into the chipped or cracked area, and fill it with the resin until it’s full of resin.
Most repair kits have a curing strip that you’ll apply after the resin has been applied to the windshield. You’ll need to follow the instructions for this, but in general, you’ll squeegee away any air bubbles and let it rest for the amount of time recommended by the kit. Once the curing strip is removed, you’ll have a flawless windshield again!
While this article focuses on companies that manufacture the tools used to do windshield repairs, it’s important to recognize that pioneering service technicians were also responsible for developing their own methods of repairing windshields. Many of these people were able to make a living from their work and were instrumental in developing the windshield repair industry that we see today.
Dixie Auto Glass
1365 Mid-Way Blvd #6, Mississauga, ON L5T 2J5, Canada
(905) 795-0000