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This is a carry over to the discussion of headlight grills. I did this a couple of weeks ago. This was done in the Kitchen oven...It's my kitchen. Very little after smell. You wife won't know.

I'm using 1/6" thick Lexan purchased at Lowe's. A 10 x 16 piece was about $10. Would make 2 pieces.

Lexan can be drape molded at 400 degrees. It must be degassed first or bubbles will appear in the Lexan. Degassing in a 250 degree oven for 20 minutes. Not being aware of this, at the time, I placed the grill with a piece of Lexan in the preheated, 400 degree oven for 20 minutes. It did sag. I should have cut the piece to roughly the size of the grill. I'm sure that the overhang prevented a better drape.

You can see the bubbles in the Lexan from not degassing. I'm going to fit this piece to the grill just to see what needs to be done. It will want to be a very close fit and epoxied in place.



Vacuum molding would not work here as it will pull the Lexan into the bars. How much distortion,  of the light beam will be another question.IMG_20210427_080347331IMG_20210427_080412229

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Well done Jim!  I was going to ask what holds them in place but I re-read above and, well, never mind...

It's amazing what can be done in a kitchen oven; I've baked suspension and brake pieces after spraying 2 or 3 coats of Tremclad.  Let them dry overnight first, then preheat to 150-160°F, bake for 30 minutes, let cool and they come out amazingly tough!  And since most of the off-gassing occurred overnight, 1/2 hour later (after opening a window or 2) the kitchen smells fine and the wife will never know what you've done!

@aircooled posted:

Very useful information Jim.  I've tried this with regular acrylic "plexiglas" but not "lexan".   Didn't know about the outgassing .  Where did you learn about the outgassing  or do you just know these things Sir ?....................Bruce

Bruce, Lexan has a how to guide with lots of useful information. It's free. Funny how I tend to look for that kind of stuff after I've screwed up the part.

I hope I don't drift too far, but this story just happened a couple weeks ago.

I have a set of AC gauges and a vacuum pump. A friend of mine has a 2002 Chevy Trailblazer(bought it new, it's in great shape) and his AC just went out. He's the guy that got me my vacuum pump for free so I always take care of his AC needs.

We're trying to find the high pressure service valve and it isn't anywhere we look. Low pressure valve, no problem: right there by the receiver/drier. So, Youtube to the rescue, right? First click this guy is yacking on and on and on, so I fast forward until I see the high pressure valve is hiding up by the radiator under a plastic cover.

In order to properly evacuate any air and moisture from the system, you need both high and low pressure valves. So, we suck it down, then check for it to hold vacuum. It's good, so I figure maybe there is a very slow leak, sometimes it permeates the older rubber hoses. After all, it's 20 years old on the same fill, right?

So, I charge it up(refrigerant goes into the low pressure side), get good pressures and 40 degree COLD air at the vents(it was 75 out). Pretty good for R134a.

Then I disconnect the hoses, and here hisssssss out of the darn high pressure Schrader valve.

That's what the guy was yacking about in the Youtube video LOL! GM high pressure valves leak after a while, because they are JUNK and leak eventually.

My friend bought a new valve and I charged it back up for good a week late. It only cost two 16 oz. cans of freon, a few dollars for a valve, and a couple hours time.

I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier, but after you cut lexan you can get rid of the “frosted” edge of the cut with a heat gun. You just have to be careful because the temp between when the plastic melts and blends back into itself isn’t far from where it starts to “boil” and creates bubbles.
It’s easier to do this with a small electronic/heat shrink gun than a big-assed hair dryer-style industrial heat gun.
If you’re really good, you can do it with a butane torch, too, but there you have to be careful because it’s really easy to burn it and get a soot spot.

Thank you for that. The reason I ask is because I have to leave the protective paper on my Wind Wings to prevent them from being scratched for manufacture to customer. I've been hand polishing them for this reason. The last batch were flame polished by the cutter but it's not as nice. It doesn't give the nice radius edge that hand polishing does. Occasionally I have to touch up the flame polished edges..............Bruce

Thanks Guys !  I'm totally out of stock on my Visors and Wings !  Sierra Madre Collection and Vintage Motorcars bought out all my inventory last week !

My CNC guy says it will be two months before he can get to my order because of a huge job he got from JPL over in Pasadena.  He even offered me a job to help him get some other work out while he does the JPL job !  That would be weird !  Go to work and and get paid to work on my own job order ?  I don't know Jack about operating a CNC machine but maybe I would just feed it aluminum and it would spit out my parts !  We'll see.

American Work Mule.........You can buy my Wind Wings from the above mentioned companies. I'm pretty sure they have them in stock.  Ha ha !

I should mention that I DO have plenty of my Driver's Left Foot folding Foot-Pegs and Quick-Change front License Plate Brackets in stock.  Shipping is free for SOC members in the USA................Bruce

Carlos......No I don't have a website. A friend will make me a nice one for about a  $1000 but that's more than I want to spend. Plus I don't think I have enough different products to justify it. My prototype cup holders are on the back burner right now for the same reasons. The CNC guy has no time to write the program and make me a few sample prototypes of them. Sales have increased every year since I started making and selling these accessories. It's worldwide now . This is the first time I've been out off stock.  Here's a couple photos of my Folding Foot Rests and License Plate Brackets........Bruce

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