Hi fellas,
I'm building an M35 truck & want to model the windscreen in the open position. The windscreen on the M35 has two panes of glass (one on drivers side & one for passenger) which pivot outwards from the top. Is there a product on the market I could use to replace the kits clear window which is way too thick?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Joe.

If you can, go out and buy a matchbox car for $3. Cut the plastic to size. Instant window.

You can also get packages of clear sheet styrene from Evergreen or Plastruct that come in many different thicknesses. They offer much more quality control and are pretty cheap too.

To do that on this Dodge, I just used clear styrene from the local hobby shop.

I hope that helps.
The packaging for Matchbox cars (or any toy or household product for that matter) is sometimes more wavy, but yes, cheaper. Purpose-made clear styrene will work with standard model glue, but use clear window glue (from Micromark or Testors) or white "school" glue (like Elmers in the USA) so that it dries invisibly.
thanks,
Sean.

Thanks for your help fellas. Evergreen clear sheet styrene ordered & on the way.
Nice model, by the way, Sean. What you've done there is exactly what I want to do. How did you go about tackling it? I've got an Eduard PE set for the windows on my truck & I'm required to take the plastic kit window frame out, which I've done. What's my next move? Do I fit all the parts & clear plastic sheet before painting (masking window, of course) or do I leave the window out til the end?
Thanks mate. Help would be appreciated.
Joe.

I'm sure there are several ways to do it. In my case, I kept the outside frame of the kit piece, but cut out the inner frame. I made a new inner frame from styrene strips (Evergreen too, if I remember right) around the clear window glass. I think I painted the frame first, then glued in the glass using a "dries clear" glue, as I mentioned in my earlier post, so that the edges of the glass don't show white unpainted framing. Black around the glass edge can represent the rubber gasket.
thanks for the compliment! I'm trying to learn more with every build. I look forward to seeing how yours comes out too.
-Sean.

Joe:

I recently scratched a 2-panel windscreen for a Tamiya Horch 1A I'm building into a DAK flak truck.

I built the frame from strips of white styrene 0.01 sheet, and used some clear styrene cut from a bubble-pack of some sort for the "glass". The clear is approx 0.010 thick. I chose it based on clarity as versus thickness, as the "glass" is sandwiched between styrene frame pieces, so, short of using something really heavy, nobody could tell how thick it really is. The window has come out pretty nice in that it has no "visual wobblyness", etc. Depending on how clean you leave your windows, optical clarity could be an important concern, as most clear styrene sheet has "wobbles" in it which become pretty evident when one looks thru the window...

As seen in the attached pic, I modeled one panel open (actually, on the real thing, maybe only the driver panel did open...). This is still quite a WIP and the windows are clean and un-sullied (in fact much of the build has yet to be weathered and dirtied- look at the gun base and you'll see!)- I do plan on dusting up the windows. Maybe with applied pigments or chalk dust for a real dust effect?

Bob

Hi Bob,
Nice to hear from you again. What you've done there is exactly what I want to do with my M35. I managed to get hold of some thin plasticard sheets aswell as the clear one so I'll be able to build a nice frame. I'll post some photos when its done.
I really like the Horch, Bob. That's already a great weathering job you've done there. Very nice.
Joe.