Tinted Reflective Lexan (polycarbonate)

[NoMercyJoe]

Now , I remember in some topics people mentioned that vacuforming plastic over a mold , or tinting it with window film , won't be dark enough or reflective enough.

LEXAN is used in things like airplanes , or , for bullet proofing things , among MANY other used.

I saw a picture of a boat with these dark , reflective LEXAN windows, and , it turns out , a google search for "tinted lexan" yields a lot of results for dark gold tinted reflective pieces of LEXAN.


LEXAN comes super cheap , and , this may finally be a way to make an EVA visor.

Just figured I'd bring something up about darker tinted versions of lexan , and other brands of polycarbonate.

Also , on ebay , I found a spray paint that makes lexan fade from red to gold depending on the angle. I typed in "gold lexan".

Cheers,

-Joe

 

[NZTK]

Sounds awesome

 

[Vrogy]

Why do people keep going on about the EVA as if making one is some great mystery? Its not. Its also probably one of the easier helmets to make, it has a lot less detail than the others.

Detail isn't the problem. The problem is the materials technology.
It needs to be:
-reflective on one side.
-gold-tinted
-thermoform-able

So far the best "might work" solution IMHO is to separate the requirements.
Use normal clear plastic to form the basic shape(whatever kind is easiest), then apply window tinting to it after it's formed.
This does introduce another requirement to the tinting, but it removes the thermoforming problem, so you then have these requirements for the tinting:

-reflective on one side.
-gold-tinted
-stretchy to conform to tight curves

I think the stretchiness problem can partially be solved by the use of heat in applying the window tinting.

So to sum it up.. it *is* a problem. That's why it hasn't been done yet.

 

[Vader]

I was reading up on this a little last night. It seems that the main problem with tinting polycarbonate (lexan) is that it tends to 'outgas,' or produce gas, for a long time. The outgassing creates bubbling in the tint, and basically renders the tint useless over time. I only assume this is due to the moisture content that NZ-TK mentioned.

From what I read, the qualities of polycarbonate are very similar to ABS and HIPS in regards to thermoforming. The main difference is that there is a quicker cooling time. This means that the plastic must basically be heated over the mold and formed almost immediately. I don't think this material can be too difficult to work with, because the RC modellers use it fairly often to create new bodies for their RC vehicles.

I did read on a lens tinting website (cameras) that it is possible to tint polycarbonate, but the process seems to be rather long and involved. And not to mention, lenses tend to be a lot smaller than face shields. I can't find the site now, it should be in my history but the address isn't apparent as I thought it would be.

So polycarbonate is the way to go as far as forming a well-shaped visor, but the gold tinting could pose a problem. There are clear spray paints that many import tuner types use to paint light covers, but there's not a gold, just red and yellow mainly.

And the research continues...

 

[NZTK]

So far the best "might work" solution IMHO is to separate the requirements.
Use normal clear plastic to form the basic shape(whatever kind is easiest), then apply window tinting to it after it's formed.
This does introduce another requirement to the tinting, but it removes the thermoforming problem, so you then have these requirements for the tinting:

-reflective on one side.
-gold-tinted
-stretchy to conform to tight curves

I think the stretchiness problem can partially be solved by the use of heat in applying the window tinting.

You raise some very valid points vrogy, the problem however is window tint is completly unsuitible for this type of application because, window tint is a thin polyester film, that when heated, dosnt stretch, it shrinks. This property makes it very difficult to tint rear windows of cars, I have a friend that does this for a living and his verdict when I showed him a screen grab was "Ha Ha, good luck with that mate".
This of course leaves vinyl, there are several highly conformable metalic vinyls on the market. 3M makes particularly good ones however, Im yet to find one in a suitible colour and, thats not to mention its major draw back which is of course, vinyl is opaque.
I have also become convinced after studying reference images that the best colour for halo visors would be more of a peralized or metallic yellow with gold/bronze detailing, rather than straight gold, which in my experience tends to look too brown for halo stuff compared to in-game screen grabs.
Luckily there is more than one way to skin a cat...or visor in this case