Most realistic way of making autu glass??????????

[doorslammer68]

Most of these resins don't come with windshields. What is the best most realistic way of making the window glass especially if it curves??????????? Thanks very much, Doorslammer68

[Anglia105E]

1 hour ago, doorslammer68 said:

Most of these resins don't come with windshields. What is the best most realistic way of making the window glass especially if it curves??????????? Thanks very much, Doorslammer68

I find that the clear acetate sheets that are to be found inside cake boxes can be very good, such as the good quality packaging from Marks & Spencer in England.

Also, I have used 2 litre Coca Cola plastic bottles, that have a nice curve to them. There will be other MCM forum members coming along with better ideas, but those are my two suggestions.

David

[MrObsessive]

As James mentioned, you can use the plastics as he described. However those can only be useful for relatively flat windshields. For radically compound curved windshields that are seen on cars of the late '50's/early '60's, you would almost need to vacuform them.

Here are a few pics of windshield glass I made from clear stencil sheet, and what's known as .020 PETG for vacuforming.

1974 Corvette restoration which had a badly distorted windscreen...........Mold made first to be vacuformed. Using the clear stencil sheet route wound up to be too frustrating so I went the extra mile and vac-formed it.

The inside was filled with Plaster of Paris for strength for the vac-form machine.

And the result.........

1959 Chevy which as you can see has a very compound curved glass. No way one could bend acetate sheet with that shape!

Mold made first of the existing glass (too distorted for my tastes).....

And then a new one vacuformed. I use the vacuform machine sold by MicroMark.

Better pic of it with the car completed. BTW, the same was done to the rear window. Same reason as that also is quite curved and doesn't play nice with just bending clear stencil sheet.

And here is the Turbine car with clear stencil sheet used for its glass. The glass while not bad in the kit, was a little too hazy looking and I wanted something that was more optically clear to suit the other body corrections I had done.

Hope this gives you some ideas. Good glass in a build for me is an absolute must as I see that as pretty much bodywork. It's one of the first things people will notice and bad/distorted glass IMO is a HUGE turn off and has been for years.

Edited November 25, 2019 by MrObsessive

[Richard Bartrop]

Thin acetate or butyrate seems to be the way to go, as clear styrene likes to craze when you bend it.   Most curved auto glass is just a simple curve.  so as long as you have something that can bend, you should be good.  Use a piece of heavy paper to make a template.

[Flat32]

3 hours ago, Richard Bartrop said:

Most curved auto glass is just a simple curve.

This is true for side glass and for scale model purposes simple curves probably work quite OK, but he fact is many, if not most, windshields are compound curves.  The top to bottom curve isn't very pronounced, but it is there and might even be noticed on a model. In the real world the curve enhances strength and reduces reflected glare.

[Tom Geiger]

First, if you are building resin bodies,  a lot of them need clean up where the windshield will mount.  Some bodies are too thick and will require thinning so the glass doesn't appear to be in a deep hole.  Others need the mounting surfaces sanded to flatten them out.  Check yours before you paint the body!

I agree with others on types of plastic to use.  

I will add one more tip.  As you are trying to get the flat windshield to hold in place, this tape helps!  It's two sided tape for scrap book folks. It's clear. I bought it in Hobby Lobby or Michaels.  

You can use it all the way around and it sticks very well.  I don't see any failure on cars I did with this a few years ago.  And / Or...  use it to hold the windshield in place and use the canopy cement or appoxy as you would normally around the edges.

 

[Anglia105E]

46 minutes ago, Tom Geiger said:

First, if you are building resin bodies,  a lot of them need clean up where the windshield will mount.  Some bodies are too thick and will require thinning so the glass doesn't appear to be in a deep hole.  Others need the mounting surfaces sanded to flatten them out.  Check yours before you paint the body!

I agree with others on types of plastic to use.  

I will add one more tip.  As you are trying to get the flat windshield to hold in place, this tape helps!  It's two sided tape for scrap book folks. It's clear. I bought it in Hobby Lobby or Michaels.  

You can use it all the way around and it sticks very well.  I don't see any failure on cars I did with this a few years ago.  And / Or...  use it to hold the windshield in place and use the canopy cement or appoxy as you would normally around the edges.

 

I agree with Tom's observation about the thickness of the resin body model cars, and one trick I learned when I started building the 1:24 Minicraft Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud cars, which was instead of mounting the kit supplied plastic glass INSIDE the body shell..... simply mount the thinner acetate sheet OUTSIDE the windscreen surround frame. This actually looks very realistic, rather than having the ' glass ' sunk into a deep hole as Tom described.

David

[sbk]

As others said, thin acetate or similar will work. I've used 0.010" clear styrene, .007" clear PVC, & .005" acetate on various models. My favorite is the PVC because it can take pretty heavy duty curves without crazing or clouding up like styrene does.

I dig a channel around the opening on the inside of the body for the "glass" to sit in. If that's not possible, I'll glue in a strip of 0.020" x 0.020" styrene strip around the inside opening to create the channel. Sorry, I can't find any of my photos showing that. If you can get the fit of the glass tight in the channel, it should stay in place with little or no glue. But, you may have to sit there & make 5 or more windshields before you finally get one to fit perfectly. Material is cheap, it's just the time factor.

The '56 Pontiac had an acetate rear glass & windshield.

 

 

The '57 Chevy truck had totally messed up windshield & rear window trim that I rebuilt with styrene rod. I used PVC on this one. The fit in some places could have been better, but I left well enough alone. There's a slight distortion when looking through it, but I was also getting that with styrene.

Give it a try & see what you can come up with.

 

Steve

 

[peteski]

12 hours ago, sbk said:

As others said, thin acetate or similar will work.

. . .

The '56 Pontiac had an acetate rear glass & windshield.

While modelers for many decades used to generically call any thin clear plastic sheets "acetate" (like many people call all brands of facial tissues "Kleenex"). I don't think that actual "acetate" is around anymore.  Sure, back 40 or 50 years ago, the clear plastic was actual "acetate", but that was replaced by other plastics, like what has been mentioned here already" Polystyrene, PETG, Plexiglas, Lexan (polycarbonate), PVC,  and probably few others.

"Acetate" is also not an accurate name.  It is actually  Cellulose Acetate .         It is not very stable.  Even if it was available for sale, I would not choose it to use it for my hobbies.

[sbk]

10 hours ago, peteski said:

While modelers for many decades used to generically call any thin clear plastic sheets "acetate" (like many people call all brands of facial tissues "Kleenex"). I don't think that actual "acetate" is around anymore.  Sure, back 40 or 50 years ago, the clear plastic was actual "acetate", but that was replaced by other plastics, like what has been mentioned here already" Polystyrene, PETG, Plexiglas, Lexan (polycarbonate), PVC,  and probably few others.

"Acetate" is also not an accurate name.  It is actually  Cellulose Acetate .         It is not very stable.  Even if it was available for sale, I would not choose it to use it for my hobbies.

Transparency film for copy machines.

[thatz4u]

On 11/26/2019 at 1:41 PM, sbk said:

Transparency film for copy machines.

sounds like a good answer, were can you get it???

[SfanGoch]

Staples, OfficeMax, Office Depot, etc. Also at art supply stores like Blick Art Materials and so on.

[mikemodeler]

A lot of great answers here on how to form compound pieces, but I have a resin Suburban that  need to make side and rear windows for. They will be flat, rectangular pieces that I will glue in either from the inside or outside, depending on how well I can trim them to fit. My question is- will regular .010 evergreen flat clear sheet work okay? I will walk the aisles at Hobby Lobby and see if they have something else that can be used as well.

[Richard Bartrop]

Clear styrene is fine if you aren't going to bend it.  I would recommend not using CA glue as the fumes will fog up clear styrene.  Five minute epoxy will do the job.

[Bainford]

Has anyone found a source for PETG in thicknesses less than .020"? That seems to be the thinnest readily available online, but would like to find .010", or even .015".

[peteski]

Look on eBay.  If not, you should be able to find polycarbonate (Lexan) sheets of that thickness.  It works as well as PETG.

You can also find this stuff on Amazon, but some  of the prices there are amazingly high.

Edited January 21, 2020 by peteski

[SfanGoch]

6 hours ago, Bainford said:

Has anyone found a source for PETG in thicknesses less than .020"? That seems to be the thinnest readily available online, but would like to find .010", or even .015".

.010" clear PETG sheet two-pack for $4.97 HERE.

[Bainford]

3 hours ago, SfanGoch said:

.010" clear PETG sheet two-pack for $4.97 HERE.

Cheers! Much appreciated. 
 

Thank you too, peteski. I’ll check the lexan as well. 

[Mike999]

If you want to make incredibly realistic flat windows that are bullet-holed, broken or shattered, take a look at Uschi van der Rosten's glass kit.  It uses real (and real thin) glass.  Check out the Ford Woody on his page.

https://www.uschivdr.com/products-in-detail/the-bullet-hole-kit/

[ChrisBcritter]

Wow. Just what you need for that Bonnie and Clyde death car diorama?