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Date:         Tue, 14 May 1996 10:57:00 -0700 (PDT)
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "Maher, Steve (SD-MS)" <SMAHER@gi.com>
Subject:      Re: Front Glass

>>The tempered glass, which shatters so spectacularly and showers everyone >>with (nonlethal) pieces, is also used in Hollywood movies. They make it >>very breakable so that Schwarzenneger won't break half the bones in his >>hand when he punches through a car windshield trying to kill Linda Hamilton. >>But they used the real stuff in Die Hard and Ghost... very carefully. >> >No. "Glass" in Hollywood movies is not real glass at all but a movie prop >made specifically for breaking while not killing anyone. Any body part going >through real glass (tempered, laminated, whatever) would be inevitibly cut. > The way they do it in the movies they would be cut to shreds if it were real >glass.

My point exactly. When A.S. punched thru the windshield, it was the easy-break stuff. When the bad guys shot out all the office glass in Die Hard, it was real glass, so that we'd see the sharp splinters that real glass produces... but no body parts ever came near it, because it would have sliced them to ribbons as you pointed out. Same with the windows that broke in Ghost-- the real stuff broke, with the camera showing only glass, not humans (who were far away). Later when the glass fell on the bad guy, it wasn't glass any more-- probably soft clear plastic, cut to look like the real stuff from the previous shot.

When a rock hits your windshield, even at 60-70 mph, it doesn't punch through, unless it's really huge. It does make quite a star, or chip, or other spectacular thing that forces you to replace the windshield later. But you don't get a faceful of glass, or the entire windshield in your lap, unless the impacting object is so massive that it overpowers the strength of the assembly.

My '69 bus got clonked with a baseball-sized hailstone when I was heading west out of Denver once (same storm that broke a zillion carnival lights and pummelled people stuck on a roller coaster). It hit the trim strip about half an inch above the glass-- never actually touched the glass itself. A huge BANG, instant cracks all the way down the windshield, a hefty dent in the trim strip, but nothing came loose.

After I peeled myself off the headliner, I pulled off the freeway and drove across an open field (gotta love that ground clearance) to park under a big tree until the storm left. No, I wasn't worried about lightning-- not much, anyway. Golfball-sized hailstones were bouncing off the roof and windshield (no damage!), jumping off the grass all around so I could see their size, and that big one probably had friends.

Some windshields may well be fragile, and crack at the slightest tap. But that bus windshield was tough, until a really big one hit.

______________________________________________________________________ _ ______________ ______//________ Steve Maher smaher@gi.com //__][__||____\\ /o _ | -| _ \ San Diego, CA 75461,1717 (o _-| _ o| `-(_)=======(_)---' '(_)-------(_)-' '66 Mustang Coupevertible '89 Son Sherwin '80 VW V6anagon

http://www.wp.com/IrishMafia

"There are plenty of jobs to be had-- I have three of them myself!" ----------------------------------------------------------------------


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