SHIELDS: FAQ’s
question mark clipart png from pngtree.com Hey SHIELDS People, This may be the most useful blog post yet. I am sharing with you our most frequent questions and answers about our products. We get phone calls every day asking these exact questions. I hope they are useful for you and if your question is not on this list you can ask it in the comments! 1. Going from the original glass size to a thicker option will I have to do any adjusting to make yours fit properly? No, with the SHIELDS® Advantage you get the form [...]
SHIELDS® Advatage: Form Fit Function of Glass
Hey SHIELDS® people, let's learn about polycarbonate! We get questions every day about our 1/2" and 3/8" polycarbonate doors and window, "will it fit"? "Do I need anything extra"? We love this question because the response is always the best. NO, you don't need anything extra and YES our polycarbonate door will fit just the same as your OEM glass! Let's dive in. There are two parts to the SHIELDS® Advantage and right now we are talking about the Form-Fit - Function of OEM glass. Every single polycarbonate product you get from us will drop fit into your machine [...]
New Skid Steer Doors
Hello SHIELDS® people! Here is a quick update. We have multiple new products recently added to our retail line! Here is the list of our newest products and a link to each one that we have in our store. All are polycarbonate replacement windows with the Form-Fit and Function of OEM glass! Available in all three thicknesses, 1/4" - 3/8" - and 1/2" and finished off with our proprietary SUPERCOAT™ a hard coating that we put on the outside of your windshield to protect it from UV and scratches. Gehl R Series Skid Steer door New Holland Deluxe Cab [...]
Cleaning your Polycarbonate Windshield
Okay SHIELDS® people let's chat about cleaning, cleaning, your polycarbonate windshield that is! Caring for your SHIELDS® replacement windshield is not complicated or hard, but we want to make sure you know just how to do it. Along with this post, we have a video that we put together to show you just what we are talking about. When you get your windshield you will get a care and installation paper from us. This paper has links to our YouTube installation videos as well. If you threw it away no worries you can print another one here! This sheet is [...]
Polycarbonate: Strength through Flex
Polycarbonate is a unique material that is 260X stronger than glass, but yet can looks so much like glass people get them confused! Being strong is awesome, but what makes it so strong? I want to quickly explain what gives polycarbonate (Lexan®) its' strength. It's all about being flexible! That's right, polycarbonate has a flex to it so it is not rigid and stiff like glass. This flex gives polycarbonate its phenomenal strength and protective properties. We actually see this in other aspects of building materials. It might seem strange but a similar idea is used when building skyscrapers and [...]
SUPERCOAT™ What Makes Us Different
SHIELDS® people, today we are going to dig into a part of our business that sets us apart from our competition. Our proprietary SUPERCOAT™ is the hard coating that we add to our polycarbonate products. This coating gives you a windshield with a scratch-resistant surface that is abrasion resistant to steel wool! So, you get the perfect OEM fit and function with the best scratch resistance, but how? Let's dig into our SHIELDS® SUPERCOAT™ and talk in terms of candy! Yes, candy! To explain how we have a hard coating on our products with the perfect form we like to [...]
Polycarbonate Guages & Why They Are Important
SHIELDS® people, I want to break down polycarbonate gauges and explain why it is important to know what thickness you are ordering your SHIELDS® replacement window and why! One of the main reasons to go from glass to polycarbonate (AKA Lexan, Safety glass, etc - if the names are confusing read this post) is because polycarbonate is 260X stronger than glass! Glass is just going to break, it is not "if" but "when". Maybe a bias statement, but we have not been proven wrong yet. If you are new to SHIELDS® it is fair to warn you, we are confident [...]
Polycarbonate and Glass – What is poly?
I grew up in the world of polycarbonate and plastics. Always hearing the internal lingo, polycarbonate, and all the numbers that go with the different kinds, seemingly endless. Now working for the company, I realize just how many names people have for our product. To clarify, we are a polycarbonate thermoformer. We specialize in forming and coating optical grade heavy gauge poly for all types of vehicles and equipment! Some of the names used for our product make me shiver and some just make me laugh. For example, polycarbonate and glass material get mixed up a lot! To many people [...]
Polycarbonate – Do You Know What It Is?
I have made making polycarbonate windshields and windows my career, and I couldn’t be happier. I have grown up around thermoforming various plastics, but nothing compares to polycarbonate – and nothing even comes close working with high optic grade polycarbonate, especially in heavier gauges. I imagine the most challenging aspect is taking a heavy gauge plastic that does not want to be heated, let alone put into a complex 3D shape, and not only making it stable and stress-free in that shape, but making it optically correct for a driver or operator. The most enjoyable aspect is taking that optically [...]