Borosilicate repair tip.

[VicP 2]

Hi folks,

I'm not sure if this has been covered before but I have found a pretty good repair for borosilicate glass when it loses small chunks as I'm sure has happened to many a glass bed.

 

I recently lost a couple of small chunks out of one of my glass beds, first on one side and then on the other, and although i can reposition some parts to avoid it, it's not always possible. I decided to have a go at repairing it using a car windscreen repair kit made by Rainx.

It uses an epoxy resin which cures in UV light, so a short spell outside in the sun quickly hardens it off and it can be easily and accurately flattened off afterwards with a razor blade used square on to the glass.

 

This has breathed a bit more life into the glass and prevents defects with the first layer showing in this area if your print can't be repositioned to avoid the damage.

So far so good with the repair I've made, I have printed over it and the repair stayed put when I removed the print, but I'll have to wait and see if it's a lasting repair or whether it will eventually come out when a print is removed. Not a problem though, I'll just repeat the repair.

The position of the repair is pretty much invisible on the print first layer so I'm pretty pleased that I can carry on using the glass without issue.

 

I hope this might be useful to some of you who may have borosilicate glass beds sat in a drawer not being used because of this type of damage.

Edited July 21, 2020 by VicP
spelling

[geert_2 556]

Thanks for the good idea. I have one glass upside-down. But this may come in handy one time if another chunk would be torn-out.

 

[VicP 2]

Here's a picture of the windscreen repair kit I used:

You don't get a lot of the resin so use it sparingly.

 

 

[VicP 2]

2 hours ago, geert_2 said:

Thanks for the good idea. I have one glass upside-down. But this may come in handy one time if another chunk would be torn-out.

 

 

This also happened with another piece of glass, a large 30mm x 15mm chunk came out, I turned it over and another chunk came out right behind the other. I repaired the smaller damage but maybe the large one is a bit beyond this type of repair.

Having said that, I may give it a go just out of curiosity. 😁

[gr5 2,002]

It says "flash point 95C" and I heat my bed hotter than that (very rarely - only when I print ABS).  Do you suppose that flash point only applies when the resin is still "wet"?