<VV> Windscreens

FrankDuVal corvairduval at cox.net
Thu Jun 4 22:49:49 EDT 2020


Since sometime in the 20's, all American windshields have been 
laminated. To this day.

Tempered is what we call the tough stuff that is not laminated. Used for 
most side glass since 1960 or so.

Tempered not allowed as windshield as no one wants small pieces of glass 
flying in their face at 60 MPH from a rock chip, which we get all the 
time here.

You can shatter laminated glass, just fold into thirds. :-D That's how I 
disposed of them in my body shop for years, fit in a 90 gallon Super Can 
used by the trash service. Or with your head, but that is a very bad 
way. Done it once, not again......

A year or so ago I had something on the interstate shatter a 6 inch 
diameter area of my windshield right in the lower middle and I never saw 
it coming.  Quite upsetting.

Frank DuVal

On 6/4/2020 5:15 PM, Hugo Miller via VirtualVairs wrote:
> Very enterprising of you. Good job you didn't break it when fitting 
> after all that effort.
> But why did the original one 'shatter'? Was it toughened glass? 
> Toughened glass was used in the UK for windshields until at least the 
> late seventies. But I thought all American cars used laminated 
> screens? Or did you mean 'cracked' rather than 'shattered'?
>
>
> On 2020-06-04 20:50, Brian via VirtualVairs wrote:
>> I have owned my 1965 course a convertible since 1979.  While
>> stationed in Germany in the early 80s I discovered a leak on the
>> passenger side under the windshield.  Needless to say the windshield
>> shattered as I took it out.  There was not a hole on the passenger
>> side in the channel under the windshield just an indentation from the
>> stamping machine so naturally water collected their and rusted
>> through.  With some assistance from German friends, I repaired the
>> rusted out section.  Now the challenge was a windshield.  The only one
>> I could locate in all of Europe was in Sweden.  The parts house and
>> all that would ship it.  They wanted me to drive the Sweden to pick it
>> up.  I was just about to do that when I had a great idea.  I would
>> order it from Clark's Corvair and have it sent to me through the Army
>> post office system.  Well that didn't work either because Clark's
>> wouldn't package it to meet the standards the army post office wanted
>> for something that size.  The trip to Sweden was look
>>  ing like it was on until another great idea hit.  I knew that in a
>> month I would be making a trip back to Cape Canaveral Florida with
>> some of my guys to fire our Pershing missiles out into the Atlantic
>> Ocean.  The missile launchers-- be mamas-- would be flown over by the
>> U.S. Air Force.  I realized that once we shot the missiles I'd have
>> these big empty missile launchers.  So I contacted a friend who worked
>> for the missile contractor in Orlando Florida and asked him it was
>> okay if I had a windshield shipped from Clark's to him.  He said it
>> was absolutely no problem.  So I ordered the windshield from Clark's
>> had it shipped to my buddy George who I knew would be at the missile
>> firings.  He brought the windshield with them out to Cape Canaveral.
>> After the missiles splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean we strapped the
>> windshield to one of the missile launchers loaded it on a Air Force
>> plane and away it went to Germany.  As soon as I got home I retrieved
>> the windshield and installed.  It is
>>  still there today.  Now all you guys who were thinking that I abuse
>> the system well maybe I did.  But that windshield didn't weigh a
>> fraction of what the gigantic vessels that.  All my soldiers got a big
>> kick out of it and gathered to watch me install the windshield. I got
>> it in just in time to take the Corvair Monte Carlo for the Formula One
>> race.
>


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