I have just had the rear window on my Flexiglass Canopy literally explode while sitting in the shade (glad we were not away from home). This is apparently not an unusual occurrence for any of the fibreglass canopies. But what I found out was that if you have an insurance policy that covers you for a new windscreen it will probably cover you for the canopy glass as well, as they are not cheap to replace it may be a good idea to check you insurance policy.
It seems that all that holds the window in place is the hinges which attach directly to the glass and any twisting or flexing in the canopy will cause the tension in the glass to weaken, like a stone on the old style windows before they were laminate. In our case we think it happened when the canopy was removed for repairs to the rear of the ute.
Flexiglass have looked after us with a really good price (below excess $) for replacement as we unfortunately had only just replaced the front windscreen a few weeks earlier after our trip to Cape Tribulation
So if you don't have windscreen replacement on your policy it may be a good idea to look into it.
Chris
__________________
"Seek wisdom not knowledge, Knowledge is of the past. Wisdom is of the future."
Chris, friends of ours have experienced the rear lift up glass on their canopy shattering last year when one of their children closed the door. It happened in the evening.
It would be interesting to see if there was some way of sticking (rivets & silicon?) piano hinge or similar to the area between the hinge.
__________________
Warren
----------------
If you don't get it done today, there's always tomorrow!
Thought of something like that myself, but in the end I think that the only solution would be to return to the old method of the panel vans where the windows were encased in a surround that was hinged rather than the glass. Chris
__________________
"Seek wisdom not knowledge, Knowledge is of the past. Wisdom is of the future."
The windows in the Flexiglass canopies are made from toughened glass. Toughened glass can spontaneously break from nickel sulphide stone inclusion.
All glass has a certain amount of nickel sulphide in its composition. When glass is toughened, the nickel sulphide microscopic stones move to an active state and can regenerate. Toughened glass has two layers, an outer which is exerting force inwards and an inner layer exerting force outwards. These are normally in equilibrium. If one of the stones happen to be on the boundary between the two layers, then the regeneration can cause the glass to explode by cracking the outer layer releasing the energy of the inner layer. This may happen years after manufacture.
These days, manufacturers have a couple of things they can do such as heat soaking which limits the the percentage to 4 panels in 100. Usually these go off during manufacture but the odd one still gets through to the end user.
Toughened glass is much stronger than laminated particularly where the edges are unframed where it must be used.
I hope this is informative. I spent much of my later career as the technical executive for a company in the window and glass industry.
There is a lot of information posted on the web under nickel sulphide inclusion in toughened glass if you wish to read more.
Thanks Greg It is interesting. Flexiglass are still trying to get a new window for us but it sounds like they either have to be specially made or imported into Au. I had thought of using a large piece of HD perspex as an interim measure but it appears the glass had a curve in it so I still have a big hole where there shouldn't be, GRRR
Chris
__________________
"Seek wisdom not knowledge, Knowledge is of the past. Wisdom is of the future."
