HOW CAR WINDOWS ARE MADE

When cars were first invented by the Richmond Hill auto glass team members, they had an open air concept. Firstly because they did not have windshields back then and secondly noone ever thought that one day we would move fast enough to have a need for protection against debris. In 2014, the speed detector on top of a Hennessey Venom GT began to malfunction because of the vibrations generated by the air molecules around it. Windshields are not made of your typical every day glass. It does not need the craftsmanship of a glass blower but making one is not easy.

Windshields used to be made out of tempered glass. It is glass that is made under a higher temperature, to make it sturdier and more durable. Now all windshields are made of laminated glass. It is like tempered glass but the cool thing about it is that it actually bends upon impact making it less likely to shatter. In fact by law all automakers have to use laminated glass.

Being glass, around seventy percent of a windshield is silica, soda ash is added to reduce its melting point, dolomite is added to make it easier to shape when in liquid form. What makes car glass different is, limestone. Richmond Hill auto glass experts have said that car windshields have limestone in them to make the final product stronger. Windshields have to be strong because it actually holds most of the weight of the roof. So your windshield is not one layer of glass but three. The layer in the middle is made of poly-vinyl, so anything hitting a windshield would have to be high impact to penetrate through the second layer.

The ingredients for the glass are all mixed with water and heated till it melts. Then the mixture is funnelled into a ‘float’ chamber. This chamber has a thin layer of molten tin upon which the mixture floats, hence the name of the process and the chamber. From here it is transported to the cooling chamber, where it is cooled slowly. This is where the windshield manufacture begins. The glass from the cooling chamber is used as the raw material. To make the shield, the glass is cut according to specifications by a cutter called the ‘scribe’. This glass is so hard that the scribe has an unrefined diamond head. 

The glass sheet is placed on or into a mould with the desired curvature and shape. It is heated just to the point where it becomes soft but does not melt, so it just sags into the mould. When in the mould it is rapidly cooled by pressurized cold air. This process is called tempering the glass. A thin layer of poly-vinyl butyral is sandwiched between two sheets of glass, heated and pressed with rollers. Now the windshield is ready to be installed on the car. Different cars have different windshields, so the sizing is done by the scribe before the tempering. 

You can change the building material for a car. Exotics can be made with everything from carbon fibre to all sorts of weird alloys, as long as it passes a crash test it can be put into production. Windshields are more specific and it is a long and tedious process. 

Lowering Costs

The costs associated with windshield and auto glass repair can be quite high. Do you know how to save money when it comes to these costs? The North York auto glass professionals will let you know.