I cannot seem to locate red lexan / polycarbonate. I have attended all of the gl*** shops in our area and I can only purchase clear or a slightly smoke tint. If you cannot buy red polycarbonate, can you tint the gl*** on the inside without the tinting cracking due to the flex? (The gl*** shops seem to be reculant to give me advise on tininting polycarbonate, or they do not know) I would like red lexan for my nostalgic dar car..... Thanks in advance for your help, guys & gals......
I could not find tinted lexan either. I used acrylic in the side windows and back windows. I guess the question is how fast are ya going to run.....sub 9.90 it will not tech. Acrylic is found at any plastic supplier. I think you can find red window tint at Autozone or anyother fart can supplier...
None of my plastics suppliers have red polycarb. They all have acrylic, not good for bending without heat. red comes in 3/16 or 1/4". You will have to put tint on the polycarb to get the look. Unless you know of a custom converter for plastics.
Believe it or not, call a few optictians who put frames in eyegl***es. They deal with polycarbonate all of the time, I'm sure if they're cool enough they'll give you the number of they're sources..
I was looking for orange lexan at one point. I was also told that RIT fabric dye would work on polycarbonate. Honestly I have yet to try it, but RIT comes in a tons of different colors. I have seen red, blue, green, smoke, but not in a while. It would be cool if someone and verify or deny if it works.
Try these guys: http://www.interstateplastics.com/ I bought some in blue to make the headlight covers ala Stone Woods & Cook. I may do it for the windows down the road.
I think your best bet would be to form the windows from clear polycarb and tint it, all i have been able to find is acrylic. http://store.summitracing.com/partd...F-XCR246&N=700+401128+320589+115&autoview=sku
Thanks guys for all your input. I actually phoned a large manufacture in the UK. They do not have red or blue polycarbonate... I guess I will be purchasing red tint for the lexan....
Check out estreetplastics on ebay. I was in your same boat looking for taillight material. I tried every damn hardware store, sign shop and gl*** store in town, no dice. The estreet guys were very easy to deal with and have a huge selection of plastic and lexan in just about every thickness and color. Good luck, -Abone.
Ridout Plastics here in San Diego has a wide variety of plastic products. I have used acrylic panels in a very vibrant red color that came from Ridout but I can't guarantee that it was polycarbonate/Lexan. Here's the link: http://www.ridoutplastics.com/index.html
check and see if there's anyone local to you that makes dna testing equipmment, there's a place about 20 miles from me that does and they have all kinds of very high quality scratch resistent lexan in all kinds of colors and thicknesses. i have gotten a few half sheets off the place by me but they really don't like selling the stuff to the public (the owner is kinda a car guy so he helped me out after hours). if you want i can find out who their supplier is or ask if they have any half sheets or remnants they want to sell. oh yeah the stuff isn't cheap either the half sheet i bought, 1/4 inch, blue tint, i think it was 4' by 2' was around $70
Will dark - or other color - windows p*** tech nowadays? Seems like NHRA outlawed tinted windows about mid-60's or so. I'm guessing that's still in effect. Many years back I found amber plexi at a plastic supply house and made side windows for my C/G***er. Plexi already colored has a far richer color than what you can do by dying it yourself. As far as dying plexi goes, we did that in high school crafts cl***. Pretty sure Rit dye was used. If I remember right, hot water was used, but it was below boiling. Get the plexi or Lexan too hot and they will bend. You may want to run some experiments with temperatures. I believe the guys who are bending Lexan are heating it to 200 degrees F. And, as you know, water boils at 212 degrees F. at sea level. Longer the plexi is in the dye water, darker the color gets. I'd say do some searching for a while and try to find plexi or Lexan that's already colored. Colored plexi may be common, but Lexan may not be available in colors other than perhaps a smoke tint for some window applications. Note that Lexan comes with an Ultraviolet resistant coating on one side. That goes toward the sun so be careful not to make two right side windows. Or two lefts for that matter. Aside from the color issue, use Lexan if you can. It is very scratch resistant and a pair of 8-10 year old windwings on my 32 highboy remain very clear and unscratched. Nothing special done to clean them, I wash them with car soap when I wash the car and that's it. Plexi, a whole other story. Light aircraft used to use plexi for windshields etc. New ones scratched up in no time and when the sun was in the right direction you couldn't hardly see out of them. Night vision wasn't so terrific either. You had to clean them with a special cream-like cleaner. Lexan light aircraft windshields are the way to go. Even though they get beat by sand and dust they remain clear and usable for a long time.
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