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.
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______//________ Steve Maher smaher@gi.com //__][__||____\\
/o _ | -| _ \ San Diego, CA 75461,1717 (o _-| _ o|
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'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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