Just got off the phone with the guy at "Smith's hot rod glass" and was asking him a few questions about glass for my '55. It seems like I would actually save money buying from him rather than buying locally so I'm kind of leaning that direction.
I asked if it would be a good idea to get tempered glass rather than the original laminated for my car and he mentioned a few things that I wasn't aware of.
1) he said that the plastic in the laminated actually blocks UV (polarized?) so my interior would last longer, and so would the tint in the glass. (not sure that's a huge issue; the tint in the 50-year-old factory glass still looks OK, even if it's all bubbly and unpleasant.)2) he said that it's possible that I might notice the interior being quieter with the laminated over the tempered (yeah, it might be quieter if I put some carpet in, too...)
3) He also said that there was a trick to keeping laminated glass looking good and not delaminating. He suggested that about once a year take a drop of 3-in-1 oil and rub it into any of the exposed edges of the glass. Supposedly that seals the edges and makes them look nice and polished and keeps the elements out of the inner layer. He said that if this was done annually that the glass would last pretty much indefinitely.It sounded like he would rather I bought the laminated, although he said that he was able to do tempered as well. I guess what he would do for a tempered piece is cut and polish it, then send it out to be tempered, and then finally send it to me. He did say that he'd have to order some green tinted plate if he were to do that, but seemed perfectly willing to do so if that's what I really wanted.
comments....?
nate