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Headlight Restoration: Good Business Decision

As a successful business owner, you know the importance of improving and growing your business. Consider the advantages of adding headlight restoration.

There are strong similarities between windshield repair and headlight restoration: both save vehicle owners money; both are eco-friendly not adding to landfills; and both make vehicles not only look better but safer with better visibility.

Upfront investment is minimal: For instance, you can get started with a headlight restoration kit for as little as $495—or less if you already have some supplies to remove the oxidation. If so, all you would need is GlasWeld’s OEM UV Hard Coat and UV Curing Light for a long-lasting, durable finish that exceeds OEM standards. And GlasWeld training is included with the purchase of any kit.

Business will come to you: While customers come in for a windshield repair, you might notice cloudy headlights and offer the service. Both can be accomplished simultaneously saving you and the customer valuable time. Additionally, you can go to local dealerships and companies who maintain a fleet of vehicles (i.e., UPS, FedEx and utilities) to gain additional business.

So don’t miss this sure-way to get new business—especially, if your location has a lot of sunshine, which makes headlights oxidize faster. Learn more about our Gclear Essentials Kit.

Good Design Sets ecoVac Apart

Dieter Rams, who spent 40 years at German manufacturer, Braun, was so successful at revolutionizing design for consumer electronics such as stereos and home speakers that he created and copyrighted 10 design principals. These principals have inspired many product designers—including the team at Apple. What’s also worth noting is that GlasWeld’s ecoVac car windshield repair injector delivers on four of these principals.

Principal 1: Good design is innovative

Simplicity and efficiency have been the driving force behind ecoVac’s design. Unlike other chipped windshield repair products, it requires less resin per windshield and saves technicians’ money.

Principal 2: Good design makes a product useful

By providing the maximum vacuuming power possible—28 inches at sea level—the product proves its usefulness over and over again, every day, giving technicians the speed they need.

Principal 3: Good design makes a product understandable

Technicians like how the car windshield repair injector removes air and moisture before resin is injected allowing them to repair in most weather conditions.

Principal 4: Good design is long-lasting.

By offering less moving parts, there is less chance a part in the ecoVac will break ensuring longer wear for customers.

While you might not think of your ecoVac as you would your iMac or home speakers, you can see—and appreciate—its good design.

See our windshield repair kits here.

 

Copyright Dieter Rams

ProCur UV Curing Lamp Gets Kudos

Curing lamp’s speed and its ability to cure resins completely are the reasons.

Technicians continue to share with us how satisfied they are with our ProCur UV Curing Lamp. Besides curing windshield repair resins fast, they appreciate the lamp’s dependability and consistency emitting at just the right UV wavelength frequency to cure resin completely.

And completely is the key because they know how difficult it is to visually determine whether resin is fully cured. With ProCur, this challenge isn’t a problem.

Getting back to how fast it is

Technicians have noticed the speed saying that UV Curing Lamp saves up to five minutes per repair, which is saving them about one hour per day and allowing them to fit in one more repair. Not bad. All of us can benefit from an extra hour each day.

Learn more about our windshield repair kits now.

Remove Graffiti from Glass Quickly

No matter your personal feelings about graffiti and whether you view it as a powerful art form that supports one’s freedom of speech or as an offensive form of language used for scare tactics, you can appreciate that it’s a big problem for business owners.

All forms of property vandalism can hurt a business’s bottom line, but none is—as visible—or in need of immediate action than graffiti removal. See recent damage on Whistler’s famous peak-to-peak gondola. Customers might turn away and go elsewhere if they see regular graffiti on a retailer’s storefront or business.

In 2006 the Brooklyn Museum displayed 22 works by New York graffiti artists. While they might treat graffiti artists as celebrities, glass scratch removal technicians see graffiti as a big repair job—one that needs the right degree of patience along with the right tools to remove graffiti from glass.

Consider getting GlasWeld’s Gforce glass abrading and graffiti removal kits. The kits have been field-tested and proven for scratch removal of graffiti.

Win Over National Chains for Windshield Repair

If you’re like others, you’re windshield repair business is up against national chains more often. They tout their expertise, convenience (some offer mobile service) and their strong warranty program. You too can tout this plus you have an additional edge—you’re local. To combat their onslaught, you must put your marketing hat on and think more competitively. Here are a few suggestions:

• Local is better: Explain to customers that the national windshield repair chains don’t always deliver the consistent value or service promoted on their websites. Going with a proven, local firm is a better choice because they get to deal with a real person, not a corporation, and have fewer hassles.
• Qualifications: Highlight the fact that not all windshield repair technicians are created equal. Emphasize your talent, skills and certification, which all ensure the best result—and better safety for them and their passengers.
• Quality products: Communicate that you use high-quality GlasWeld windshield repair kit products, which saves time and money. The products are considered the industry’s best and the resins meet the highest standards.
• Convenience: Most customers avoid getting their windshield repaired right away because they have to find the time around a very busy work and family schedule. Take the pressure off them by promoting how you can make their service experience more convenient. Are you open on the weekends? Can you do repair in less than an hour? Are you mobile? Can you arrange to drive them back to work or home if they can’t wait? Can you do it onsite at their work if weather is permitting?
• Encourage feedback: Ask customers to leave positive comments on your Facebook page. Ask them to fill out an online customer survey then show summary of positive feedback on your website.

Every windshield repair business needs an edge in a competitive market. Know yours…then promote it.

Make sure you’re on GlasWeld’s “Find a Tech” page or do local search marketing per recent blog.

Protect Your Windshield Repair Kit Tools for Success

Are you a windshield repair technician who likes the convenience of storing your repair tools in the back of your truck?  Although this might be an OK practice if you live in mild climate areas—it’s a bad idea if you live in areas with extreme temperatures. Just last week the temperature in Bend, Oregon, the corporate headquarters of GlasWeld, dropped to 17 degrees.

Cold temperatures like these can cause problems for your repair tools.

Resins can become thicker and seals can become less flexible causing possible equipment failures—all of which can cost you valuable repair time.  We suggest that you bring your windshield repair kit tools inside your home or business in a climate controlled workspace. Similar to house paint, stains and brushes that need to warm up before proper use in the winter, so does your windshield repair system.

And the opposite can also affect your repairs. When temperatures heat up, as they are in much of the country, resin viscosities get thinner and the windshield’s PVB layer can become softer causing possible flowering issues.

A way to combat this is with thicker resins and by minimizing the pressure that your injector exerts against the glass or the pressure that you exert with the probe during flexing.

Stack Success in Your Favor

Keeping your tools stored in a climate-controlled environment and factoring in temperature extremes during repairs are two easy ways to ensure quicker—and more successful repairs. Because we all know, time is money.

Glass Scratch Repair Allows the Cosmopolitan to Open On-Time

Glass scratch repair becomes especially important for complex architectural projects that must meet a tight timeline for a grand opening. This was the case with Las Vegas’ newest and hippest billion-dollar casino, the Cosmopolitan.

The towering structure utilized a lot of custom glass manufactured in China. Between manufacturing, shipping and installation scratches developed. Some replacement glass was available, however, not enough—and not for the various custom sizes. Since there was no time to order replacement glass, GlasWeld was brought in to prepare a glass scratch repair plan that would allow the casino to open on-time.

GlasWeld moved quickly and developed a plan that entailed training Union glaziers on the use of our products and techniques then overseeing glass scratch repair for more than six months and 30,000 man-hours.

Thanks to our efforts, the Cosmopolitan opened on-time with the fanfare needed for its success. And, the casino came under budget for original glass replacement costs.

Creating a Union training program was a time-consuming endeavor and training 20 persons at a time proved difficult, but GlasWeld was up to the challenge. Excellent training and glass scratch removal equipment are the hallmarks of GlasWeld—and no job proved it better.

Canada’s Premier Ski Resort Benefits from GlasWeld

Ranked the number one resort in North America, Whistler is known for their two majestic mountains, epic skiing and snowboarding—and for their PEAK 2 PEAK Gondola lift. As an engineering feat, the Gondola lift serves as the longest and highest unsupported lift in the world.

Amid one of the resort’s busiest seasons, GlasWeld was called to offer guidance in repairing etched graffiti on the popular Gondola lift. Because the PEAK 2 PEAK is very large and uses custom Swiss laminated curved glass, the resort wanted to repair it—especially because they knew it could happen again.

To tackle the repair and save the resort from costly glass replacement and loss in tourism, GlasWeld ran an intensive, all-day training course for resort’s maintenance staff.

After our glass graffiti removal training, the Whistler staff successfully removed the damage—saving thousands of dollars in replacement costs. And the resort is now equipped to handle any future damage like pros.

Learn more about Gforce glass graffiti removal products and why GlasWeld is considered an expert.

When Automobile Glass Repair began to Take Off

The glass repair industry began in the 1970s, when a company named Novus licensed a system that was capable of optically matching glass—a huge breakthrough. Hap Alexander of Novus looked for ways to improve the early methods and developed proprietary products that would help advance the glass repair industry.

Insurance providers and car dealerships were first approached and sold on the merits of automobile glass repair, however, everyone knew more volume was needed to develop and expand the market. Thanks to GlasWeld and other industry leaders, laminated glass repair tools began to evolve and become more widely produced and resins began to be perfected in the 1980s. Following this product boost, automobile glass repair became more attractive to other segments and real expansion came in the 1990s; only a decade after the idea took off.

Today’s fast market growth is both a testament to the importance of automobile glass repair and is a salute to the founding entrepreneurs who made it all possible. See latest windshield repair kits from GlasWeld.

A Solid Return on Investment (ROI) is One Benefit of Gforce

GlasWeld’s Gforce glass scratch removal products are a wise investment as noted below by our customers. It has proven to save companies’ lots of money and deliver an excellent ROI. Another reason why many customers choose Gforce for removing scratches from glass is because of its modular design that grows with their needs.

For instance, when purchasing our basic glass scratch removal system, customers can choose the abrading products that best fit their current needs and upgrade to more deep scratch remover products when needed. Even our Gforce Essentials Kit has been designed to easily upgrade to a Water Feed System when higher end polishing results are required.

Satisfied Scratch Removal Customers 

“I am delighted to report that most of my investment in the scratch removal system purchased from GlasWeld was recuperated in the first week and a half. As a businessman, I can tell you that is virtually unheard of with any business investment.” - Brent Taylor, President —Autoglass Plus

“GlasWeld has allowed us to save significant amount of glass that in the past we would have thrown out. Annually, they save us a minimum of $30,000 in this regard.”
- Ed Perry—American Shower Door

So join the ranks of satisfied customers and purchase a Gforce system today.