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I have a new project that needs some windows and I'm wondering what people do to make glass....
I can make a buck and vacuum form - but I'm leaning more towards making a mold and pouring in clear acrylic...

So how do you make glass? I'm looking for ideas....

There's a third way, too. For many years I used 1 and 3 liter soda bottles. There are so many compound curves, you can match just about anything. Don't bother trying to heat it to form, it shrinks up into a ball. These days I use a small vac former using regular clear vac material, extra thin, and it dies fine. Don't make a mistake and try to use the thick clear stuff bodies are made of, its just a mess and not worth the bother.

Vac forming gets my vote too.

I have tried casting in clear and as the Shotty says it is full of issues.

Use clear plastic from anything you buy that is in a plastic display shelf packaging.

Body patterns that originally have a "frame" where the glass is laid and glued on get windows from exactly cut bottle material. Simply because some glass parts are biconvex, and there are biconvex parts in many bottles, too.

Vacuformed gass parts of resin kits are being copied and vacformed,

Injection molded glass parts of - for example - diecasts are cast, too.
Casting works absolutely easy. No bubbles, no heating, no pressure.

I would cast thin vacuformed and similar glass parts, too. But I had to thicken the originals by adding exactly cut tape on the screens to make them castable. And this is not easy.

Roland

Dang! I got all excited about the possibilities as well!
I don't think pop bottles are going to work for the tight radius of the rear window corners on the '55 Chevy Pick-up I am making a mold for right now.... :-(

I use Evergreen clear styrene (#9006), at $4 it will last me a long time. Easy to cut, easy to glue.

I haven't bought it, but seeing it in the LHS is what gave the the idea for the soda bottles. In the 1/25th 1950s-1960s NASCAR we were running at the time, the soda bottles helped a lot in strength. Broken door posts ended. Yeah, that was rough racing.

The Alumilite clear resin that HL carries might work. I have tried it and found I could make a "few" useable parts.
t is the first clear I have tried in 12-15 years and it is more user friendly that the stuff I got back then. With the discount coupon they offer, I think it was under $20 and might be worth experimenting with. I made a one piece mold that was split on one side (like an envelope). Mixed the resin slowly so it didn't get air in it and puored it slowly, then slowly closed the mold. I was making indy car windshields, so not the same as a 1/32 sedan. Might even be that a one sided mold would work for a sedan mold. As cheap as it is, you might experiment with it.

I have been using a clear lay film from Grafixarts. Works well.


Hobby Lobby, Local Hobby Shops, etc, carry it. At .007 it's easy to cut and shape.