I'm sad that it took me 5 years to come across your page and ALL of the wisdom you've shared here. I absolutely love your energy and they way you take time to explain the how AND the why, and the mistakes you've made along the way. You're the best kind of mate, and wish you all the best. Cheers from Texas (the Straya of the USA) 😎😎
Glad you've found me at last! Ever since I started my channel a decade ago I have had no success in being able to crack the American viewing market. I suspect that is due to CZcams's promotional & marketing approach, along with the algorithms that generate that. I get so frustrated seeing similar DIY car videos with egocentric loud mouths with hats on backwards getting more views in a day than I get in a year, when their content is based on their ignorance, and teaches people how to duplicate their mistaken ways of doing things. Aawwggghhhh! So please share my channel with your buddies, so they too can learn the RIGHT and easy ways of building project cars. cheers.
Thank you for sharing your trials and tribulations. This is a very very helpful video on the dos and don'ts. A word of advice: Wait for your wife to leave the house before using anything from the bathroom or kitchen in the garage. 😎
Great job Bill, dam mate you were under the pump for a minute there, Brenda AND Sophie keeping an eye on you, mate talk about stress !! And then the hair dryer without asking first, WOW brave man, brave man !! Seeya Rob.....are you still paying pennants for the hair dryer or all forgiven.....till next time. haha.
Your determination has yielded great results as always. Good to see someone share their failures in order to inform those who may go down this same path.
Yet another great video full of information that saves other people doing those many hours of expensive research, it is very generous of you to share this info with your fellow racers, a massive thanks to you and your wife . From N Ireland
The great results you got were hard fought with r and d, mistakes, advice, hard graft and money. Heart felt thankyou Bill..I'd have given up at the clouding....
This is great Bill, you have no doubt saved many of us from the headaches of our own trial and error, The Muscle Hatch is next level!! I think you should consider doing some time attack racing as well as the other types you have planned. Time attack has a huge following now, it would be great exposure for you, your hatch, and your channel. Thanks again!!!
There's a very cool Burt Munro similarity/vibe from your videos and reminds me of the scene from the film of Burt casting pistons of his own recipe. Very well made video, very educational, and thank you for documenting all these processes for others to learn from. As others are saying, what a legend!
I just found your channel and am enjoying learning and watching you create so easily. Awesome details given by far one of my favorite channels so far. Subscribed!😃 I hope to build some doors for my car when I do will post on my channel.
The instructions you shared said to predry correctly you need air exchanges of 6 per hour which would be key for removing moisture from the oven and would also avoid hot spots. Have you though about modding a convection oven blower or the like? Also, that soundtrack rips...old thrash metal guitarist approved.
Good to see your wife is on board to lend a hand with all this too, great stuff mate, I never knew about any of these tricks before I found your videos
She said "Tell them I'm not your wife!" (She bloody well is BTW... wishful thinking I guess. Glad you enjoyed the vid. Now at last I can get onto simpler mechanical stuff with this build where I don't have to LEARN anymore!
Awesome. I am about at that stage my self. My engine purrs like a kitten and I have my induction on. So I am looking forward to not having headacces because you had them for me!
Could you clamp some wood down the long edge of a sheet and hang it vertically ? Seems like that would prevent a lot of the handling and flatness hassles. You might need a fan to keep the temperatures evenly distributed in a taller oven. Great results you got there!
You can't clamp wood onto the plastic because 1) It is likely to smoke & discolour the window 2) Any clamping would be likely to loosen anyway as the sheet softens. There IS a large fan in my oven - it's just underneath it, constantly circulating air - more for changing the air as the moisture in the sheet is released rather than temperature control - although a more even heat distribution is a side effect naturally.
Literally just done this to a subaru forester over last week. Didnt need to oven it as the bend is not a compound bend. But I did use 44 bolts to secure it. And had a central column down the middle to give it support.
I tried the blackout paint on the inside of my side windows. And even using the popular Krylon paint, and suffing the surface with sandpaper, i still had paint seperation when using Sika 295uv adhesive. Thankfully bolts and nutserts were also used. I found masking tape caused bleed through under the tape of the paint aswell. I remade them and sliced into the protective sheet carefully qith a razor. This yielded far superior edges. When it came to the front glass, i did not paint a blackout on it. Instead, i suffed the surface, cleaned with alcohol. Then used Sika 295 direct onto it. Aswell as 44 x m5 nutserts around the perimiter. (About 90mm spacing) Then a complete wrap of the outer side of the screen with a black vinyl wrap. The lastly, carefully cut the inner part out to see through.
Cut plastic under water if possible, or at least put the bit you are not cutting under water. This will damp the vibrations that crack the plastic. Fixing plastic with screws. Drill the clearance hole for the thread. Countersink for the head. Where the countersink meets the clearance hole just widen the clearance hole by about 1/16”. The screw countersink and the shaft of the screw do not meet cleanly as the intersection of the two holes you drill so just opening the meeting point up a bit prevents a pressure spot and reduces the chance of cracking.
Those nylon bolts are actually quite strong depending how many u got on there u may not be able to break them they use them alot on low voltage ewp trucks and the snap quite often with sun damage trying to undo them but in good condition they are quite hard to snap as they stretch and flex alot b4 breaking point
Thanks for sharing and being open with all the issues you had. I will say, with all the steps, tools, and labour involved it's cheaper to buy from a store that has them for my particular car. Side windows and large hatch window are around 4 grand so that would be cheaper than making this process.
Everything, including the cost of making the oven & the plastic sheet, to make all the windows for my hatchback cost me under A$400. Most side windows don't even need to be heat molded, as the curves are so small.
@@BillsBuildandRace my bad I didnt mean 4 grand (facepalm myself*) I meant 400 usd(it's 4 grand in my countrys currency). Anyways that's not alot, but this is given everything goes right, which Murphys law shows me otherwise 99% of the time ;-)
could you use nichrome wire elements and a PID controller to make it electrical instead of gas for greater control and cheaper to use? vegoilguy built a metal furnace for casting this way which work at lower temps for your purpose as well.
Bill - I'm curious as to why you chose to orient the sheets horizontally in the oven, rather than vertically like in the industrial plastic drying ovens? (That's how they manage to fit multiple sheets in) Maybe the ideal solution is an oven that can go vertical for drying, but rotate horizontal for pre-melt? :-P
So one of your racing friends see this and asked you to make them a back window in that material. You be like hello no .. but not bad good learning experience
Awesome video! I am subscribed and this just popped up today! And I have checked your channel alot! QUESTION: Did you think of putting the factory glass in the oven under the acrylic? Seems like that would work. Thanks!!
That's exactly what I did in the next video in this build. Glad you're enjoying the channel. You can scroll through over 200 videos via the "Library" headings (top left main channel page).
The case of your side windows raised a question. If you had a tighter radius than could be easily bent without heating(radius in one plane only). Is it possible to heat either plastic so it still keeps it's primary rigidity but is just pliable enough to form into a slightly tighter curve. Maybe a job for Mrs. Bill's hair dryer? Love your work. Cheers.
@@BillsBuildandRace I realize that, my question was if you ran into a situation with just some more curvature, and you didn't want to get the plastic all ''gooey'', Is it possible to heat either of the plastics so it still keeps it's primary rigidity but is just pliable enough to form into a slightly tighter curve.
@@rickden8362 Yes that is possible, but you would be advised to drape mold it over the factory side glass, rather than just thinking you could warm it up enough to just bend it accurately using only your hands. Hot air dryers cannot heat a whole window evenly enough, which is why most guys who try this method fail.
Hi Bill, thanks for sharing the failures and will power to keep trying. It’s definitely a harder process due to many factors to consider from what I expected. Saved me some $$. I believe it’s the wife and dog that made it happen at the end :) Is it possible to glue the Lexan(moulded) to the side window without screws?
That formed a vital part of all the research I did, but really all I found was arguments over the differences between the clear plastics, and nothing at all demonstrating their actual molding.
$500usd seems like a good price for 5 windows. Until you add US postage. Likey to be 200usd + for postage. Then the fact our dollar is only buying 68c usd, Making it $925aud ish
Yes good point, which is why commercial plastics ovens are electric. But stripping an old electric oven & playing around with mains wiring is more fiddly and needs some skills many shed gyros don't have. The gas bbq was super cheap & easy to convert into an oven. If the flames creating moisture in it were a problem I would not have been able to successfully produce the molded windows which I did. It really is more a matter of the moisture already within the sheeting before you put it in ANY oven that causes the problems of bubbling.
On advice from a friend in the plastics industry I did indeed put a large fan heater under the gas jets inside the doors to circulate air, not so much for temperature, but more to help remove any moisture coming out of the sheets that can cause blistering. I think I mentioned the fan in my other video on how to make an oven from a gas bbq for heat forming plastic windows.
Why don’t you make your own, polish the glass for a silicone mold, add three layers of carbon fiber only around the edge maybe 1/2” and poor a pre vacuumed epoxy resin in the mold?
Yes I certainly looked at that, but the extra die/set up work on a project this size, the fact I could keep things simpler without having to use that method, and the industry videos & forums I researched is why I settled on drape molding as theway to go for me.
Your legendary status is confirmed sir 👍
Thank you so much for documenting all these mistakes so we don't have to learn them the hard way!
I'm sad that it took me 5 years to come across your page and ALL of the wisdom you've shared here. I absolutely love your energy and they way you take time to explain the how AND the why, and the mistakes you've made along the way. You're the best kind of mate, and wish you all the best. Cheers from Texas (the Straya of the USA) 😎😎
Glad you've found me at last! Ever since I started my channel a decade ago I have had no success in being able to crack the American viewing market. I suspect that is due to CZcams's promotional & marketing approach, along with the algorithms that generate that. I get so frustrated seeing similar DIY car videos with egocentric loud mouths with hats on backwards getting more views in a day than I get in a year, when their content is based on their ignorance, and teaches people how to duplicate their mistaken ways of doing things. Aawwggghhhh! So please share my channel with your buddies, so they too can learn the RIGHT and easy ways of building project cars. cheers.
@@BillsBuildandRace I will absolutely share your page, and ask them to do the same. You’re the best. 👍🏼👍🏼
Thank you for sharing your trials and tribulations. This is a very very helpful video on the dos and don'ts.
A word of advice: Wait for your wife to leave the house before using anything from the bathroom or kitchen in the garage. 😎
Said it before, and I'll say it again. You're a proper legend bud.
It's nice to see someone working with their wife on projects :)
My favorite CZcamsr! Filled with knowledge
Great results! You're a fearless DIY-project super-hero!
Great job Bill, dam mate you were under the pump for a minute there, Brenda AND Sophie keeping an eye on you, mate talk about stress !! And then the hair dryer without asking first, WOW brave man, brave man !! Seeya Rob.....are you still paying pennants for the hair dryer or all forgiven.....till next time. haha.
Your determination has yielded great results as always. Good to see someone share their failures in order to inform those who may go down this same path.
Mate your patience and determination is amazing. Great results thanks so much for sharing this.
Yet another great video full of information that saves other people doing those many hours of expensive research, it is very generous of you to share this info with your fellow racers, a massive thanks to you and your wife . From N Ireland
The great results you got were hard fought with r and d, mistakes, advice, hard graft and money. Heart felt thankyou Bill..I'd have given up at the clouding....
This is great Bill, you have no doubt saved many of us from the headaches of our own trial and error,
The Muscle Hatch is next level!!
I think you should consider doing some time attack racing as well as the other types you have planned. Time attack has a huge following now, it would be great exposure for you, your hatch, and your channel.
Thanks again!!!
Hard work that will pay off,couple car models and its a business!great work!another one that i like a lot!
There's a very cool Burt Munro similarity/vibe from your videos and reminds me of the scene from the film of Burt casting pistons of his own recipe. Very well made video, very educational, and thank you for documenting all these processes for others to learn from. As others are saying, what a legend!
I just found your channel and am enjoying learning and watching you create so easily. Awesome details given by far one of my favorite channels so far. Subscribed!😃 I hope to build some doors for my car when I do will post on my channel.
The instructions you shared said to predry correctly you need air exchanges of 6 per hour which would be key for removing moisture from the oven and would also avoid hot spots. Have you though about modding a convection oven blower or the like? Also, that soundtrack rips...old thrash metal guitarist approved.
I can really appreciate seeing the wife helping you in the garage/shop.
Good to see your wife is on board to lend a hand with all this too, great stuff mate, I never knew about any of these tricks before I found your videos
Genius, I love this 👍🏼
Congratulations, great result
That is a massive effort to get it right. Done very well. Hope you sell a few sets to recoup all the "test" panels
Your mistakes are the most valuable piece of information. Thanks for making the video, learnt a lot.
well done video, double thumbs UP!!!
awesome results thank you so much for posting the success and fails! and thumbs up to your wife for being involved!
She said "Tell them I'm not your wife!" (She bloody well is BTW... wishful thinking I guess. Glad you enjoyed the vid. Now at last I can get onto simpler mechanical stuff with this build where I don't have to LEARN anymore!
Super video as always!
Awesome. I am about at that stage my self. My engine purrs like a kitten and I have my induction on. So I am looking forward to not having headacces because you had them for me!
Thank you for great information
Could you clamp some wood down the long edge of a sheet and hang it vertically ? Seems like that would prevent a lot of the handling and flatness hassles. You might need a fan to keep the temperatures evenly distributed in a taller oven. Great results you got there!
You can't clamp wood onto the plastic because 1) It is likely to smoke & discolour the window 2) Any clamping would be likely to loosen anyway as the sheet softens. There IS a large fan in my oven - it's just underneath it, constantly circulating air - more for changing the air as the moisture in the sheet is released rather than temperature control - although a more even heat distribution is a side effect naturally.
Literally just done this to a subaru forester over last week.
Didnt need to oven it as the bend is not a compound bend. But I did use 44 bolts to secure it. And had a central column down the middle to give it support.
I tried the blackout paint on the inside of my side windows. And even using the popular Krylon paint, and suffing the surface with sandpaper, i still had paint seperation when using Sika 295uv adhesive. Thankfully bolts and nutserts were also used.
I found masking tape caused bleed through under the tape of the paint aswell. I remade them and sliced into the protective sheet carefully qith a razor. This yielded far superior edges.
When it came to the front glass, i did not paint a blackout on it. Instead, i suffed the surface, cleaned with alcohol. Then used Sika 295 direct onto it. Aswell as 44 x m5 nutserts around the perimiter. (About 90mm spacing)
Then a complete wrap of the outer side of the screen with a black vinyl wrap. The lastly, carefully cut the inner part out to see through.
Now have to figure out how to do the side doors which are frameless on subarus.
THIS IS AWESOME! THANKS FOR MAKIN THIS VID MAN!
Liking the fit of the hatch too
Extremely helpful - thanks a lot!
As this video shows, you have a wonderful wife!! She even helps you haha. Love the content!!
Thanks, lots of really useful ideas there.
Cut plastic under water if possible, or at least put the bit you are not cutting under water. This will damp the vibrations that crack the plastic.
Fixing plastic with screws. Drill the clearance hole for the thread. Countersink for the head. Where the countersink meets the clearance hole just widen the clearance hole by about 1/16”. The screw countersink and the shaft of the screw do not meet cleanly as the intersection of the two holes you drill so just opening the meeting point up a bit prevents a pressure spot and reduces the chance of cracking.
Those nylon bolts are actually quite strong depending how many u got on there u may not be able to break them they use them alot on low voltage ewp trucks and the snap quite often with sun damage trying to undo them but in good condition they are quite hard to snap as they stretch and flex alot b4 breaking point
If there was ever a badass grandpa, right fucking here ladies and gentlemen.
Thanks for sharing and being open with all the issues you had. I will say, with all the steps, tools, and labour involved it's cheaper to buy from a store that has them for my particular car. Side windows and large hatch window are around 4 grand so that would be cheaper than making this process.
Everything, including the cost of making the oven & the plastic sheet, to make all the windows for my hatchback cost me under A$400. Most side windows don't even need to be heat molded, as the curves are so small.
@@BillsBuildandRace my bad I didnt mean 4 grand (facepalm myself*) I meant 400 usd(it's 4 grand in my countrys currency). Anyways that's not alot, but this is given everything goes right, which Murphys law shows me otherwise 99% of the time ;-)
Gotta give credit to the wife for putting up with you on that hairdryer lol.
Holy smokes.... useful information delivered by a grown up. Not sure this is allowed on CZcams.
A plus
Any better and it would be for my car
Your the best my friend
Thanks for making lots of mistakes and testing and showing us!!
I thought you were going to use the defroster on the window, but the sun idea was better :)
Genius 😍
Sika 295 is supposed to be the one to use on polycarbonate and acrylic.
MVP👍
could you use nichrome wire elements and a PID controller to make it electrical instead of gas for greater control and cheaper to use?
vegoilguy built a metal furnace for casting this way which work at lower temps for your purpose as well.
Bill - I'm curious as to why you chose to orient the sheets horizontally in the oven, rather than vertically like in the industrial plastic drying ovens? (That's how they manage to fit multiple sheets in) Maybe the ideal solution is an oven that can go vertical for drying, but rotate horizontal for pre-melt? :-P
So one of your racing friends see this and asked you to make them a back window in that material. You be like hello no .. but not bad good learning experience
Awesome video! I am subscribed and this just popped up today! And I have checked your channel alot! QUESTION: Did you think of putting the factory glass in the oven under the acrylic? Seems like that would work. Thanks!!
That's exactly what I did in the next video in this build. Glad you're enjoying the channel. You can scroll through over 200 videos via the "Library" headings (top left main channel page).
I was gonna ask in one of the overfender videos what that articulating rack was for. Now i know, lexan press!
GOAT!!!!
The case of your side windows raised a question. If you had a tighter radius than could be easily bent without heating(radius in one plane only). Is it possible to heat either plastic so it still keeps it's primary rigidity but is just pliable enough to form into a slightly tighter curve. Maybe a job for Mrs. Bill's hair dryer? Love your work. Cheers.
Side windows are rarely curved enough to require heat molding.
@@BillsBuildandRace I realize that, my question was if you ran into a situation with just some more curvature, and you didn't want to get the plastic all ''gooey'', Is it possible to heat either of the plastics so it still keeps it's primary rigidity but is just pliable enough to form into a slightly tighter curve.
@@rickden8362 Yes that is possible, but you would be advised to drape mold it over the factory side glass, rather than just thinking you could warm it up enough to just bend it accurately using only your hands. Hot air dryers cannot heat a whole window evenly enough, which is why most guys who try this method fail.
@@BillsBuildandRace Thanks for the info.
Hi Bill, thanks for sharing the failures and will power to keep trying. It’s definitely a harder process due to many factors to consider from what I expected. Saved me some $$. I believe it’s the wife and dog that made it happen at the end :)
Is it possible to glue the Lexan(moulded) to the side window without screws?
One of my viewers below says Sika 295 is what should work with Lexan. Do a test, eh?
Ok will do.
More information and techniques might be gleaned from homebuilt aircraft forums.
That formed a vital part of all the research I did, but really all I found was arguments over the differences between the clear plastics, and nothing at all demonstrating their actual molding.
I’m pretty sure the FIA requires 4 mm for all side and rear openings I could be wrong but I did ask I think it was the 4 mm
Man I hope your selling these - would love some for a r32 skyline
There's a company in the states (Y&S Lexan) that make pre-made lexan windows for the most popular honda/acura models!
Hmm thats fine if you want somone else to do it.....
$500usd seems like a good price for 5 windows. Until you add US postage. Likey to be 200usd + for postage. Then the fact our dollar is only buying 68c usd,
Making it $925aud ish
What if you add a Fan to your Oven . to move the air around the inside of your oven .
Great idea! Thats' why i did it. I have a large blow fan in the bottom BBQ door.
Bill after we stripped the car weather strip, it will flush into the car windows panel, what do u use to make it lexan pop out , urathene windshield ?
I am not clear on what you are saying. Can you PM pics to me at my Redline Racing facebook page?
@@BillsBuildandRace bill ill take picture tomorrow and send to u. Thanks for.reply.
Only guy I know that knows how to properly reduce weight at home lmho
just a thought but a naked gas flame pumps out bucket loads of water vapour . . .
Yes good point, which is why commercial plastics ovens are electric. But stripping an old electric oven & playing around with mains wiring is more fiddly and needs some skills many shed gyros don't have. The gas bbq was super cheap & easy to convert into an oven. If the flames creating moisture in it were a problem I would not have been able to successfully produce the molded windows which I did. It really is more a matter of the moisture already within the sheeting before you put it in ANY oven that causes the problems of bubbling.
No convection fan?
On advice from a friend in the plastics industry I did indeed put a large fan heater under the gas jets inside the doors to circulate air, not so much for temperature, but more to help remove any moisture coming out of the sheets that can cause blistering. I think I mentioned the fan in my other video on how to make an oven from a gas bbq for heat forming plastic windows.
Why don’t you make your own, polish the glass for a silicone mold, add three layers of carbon fiber only around the edge maybe 1/2” and poor a pre vacuumed epoxy resin in the mold?
Please show us how to make Carbon Fiber doors
OK. czcams.com/video/nvU-FyvB5Ww/video.html then part 16
why not vacu-forming?
Yes I certainly looked at that, but the extra die/set up work on a project this size, the fact I could keep things simpler without having to use that method, and the industry videos & forums I researched is why I settled on drape molding as theway to go for me.
looks like you had a expensive education !!!
Car windows aren't shaped enough for you to have to bake and mold the lexan.. by using small nuts every 1" you should be good.
Please adopt me. 42 years young and a quick learner