In two words: UV light. Ultraviolet light is both the bane and boon of windshield repair: it is instrumental in setting the resins used for filling in and holding together cracks as well as breaks in a damaged windshield, yet it is also instrumental in preventing that resin from setting properly, botching a good number of cracks that were performed without the aid of a UV shield.
The UV shield is an instrument most auto glass repair shops use. It may come in the form of a sort of protective cover that attaches by means of suction cup to the glass; it may also come in the form of a bubble-type shield or dome. DIY car owners shall notice straightaway that no such shield comes with a DIY kit for home glass repairs to your vehicle. This is just another reason to prefer a professional solution to your windshield break, since a lot of the equipment properly used in windshield repair is not readily available in standard home kits for repairing auto glass. A DIY kit also does not have a UV lamp for curing, for instance.
Now if you do a windshield repair in the day, you shall most likely run into one of the biggest problems you can experience while handling auto glass cracks: a premature thickening of the resin. This happens because the resin is formulated to set upon exposure to UV light, and daylight obviously includes UV rays in its gamut of components. Thus, you are likely to have an improperly set resin if you do your repair during the day, when it can harden before it has had the chance to fill up as much of the break as it can. The result shall be a visible blemish or glass scar on your windshield, which may inconvenience you in the future. It may also leave large gaps of air in the crack, which could easily turn into points from which the crack may propagate and get larger once subjected to stress or rapid temperature change.
So what can you do to prevent this from happening? Ideally, you should just send your car to a reliable glass repair shop instead of trying to do your repair by yourself. If you would really prefer to do it at home, however, then do your repair in the garage with blinds or covers over the windows and the doors shut. Limit as much of the sun’s light as you can. It shall not work to simply put your car under a shade because light rays—UV included—bounce off surfaces, which means they can still quite easily reach your windshield even if you place the actual car under direct shadow. Do your windshield repair under an artificial light.
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