What to do about broken glass?

[Serv]

I need two pieces of safety glass and a couple pieces of regular tempered glass. Can safety glass be custom cut? I would rather use a local glass shop if this is common practice. Or should I forget trying to cut corners and just buy new glass from the dealer? I haven't checked prices on either way. Just looking for advice from anyone that's been down this road before.

[cat d9]

get the glass cut at the local glass shop, use laminated saftey glass where ever you can, that way if you get a chip or a crack the glass stays in. If you used the tempered glass that the dealer has, one chip and the whole thing falls in your lap.

[CM1995]

Absolutely- get the glass cut at a local glass shop. You can get a front windshield for a C series cat exc. for 1/3 the price of a new one from a local glass shop. We use a local shop that actually does all the glass work for our cat dealer.

[woberlin]

I had to get new glass for my excavator. I used the local glass shop and it came out great, at a small fraction of the oem price.

[okey]

Our company calls the local auto glass company, they arrive within the hour with a piece of cardboard, make a template, gone again, back in a couple of hours with the glass, and your warm (or cool) and dry again. Don't know about the cost though. Also, on the lower front window of an excavator you can fabricate one with Pexiglass pretty easy and do a pretty good lookin' job and it is break resistant and cheap. :thumbsup

[Countryboy]

Our company calls the local auto glass company, they arrive within the hour with a piece of cardboard, make a template, gone again, back in a couple of hours with the glass, and your warm (or cool) and dry again. Don't know about the cost though.

Same here, except our local company pulls the dimensions off the computer and cuts to fit before leaving the shop. We haven't found a piece of equipment that wasn't in the computer yet. :yup

[Serv]

Well, I took the advice here and called my glass man on this. He sent a guy over to measure everthing up. We will be using the laminated glass on everything. The only glass he can't do for me is the side window that slides up and down because he said those need a hole or two in them and he can't do that. I guess I'll just order that one through the Komatsu Stealership.

thanks guys. :Cowboy

[country guy]

Last few years we've found that OEM glass is not available for our Michigans, at any cost. We've had great luck with the local glass guy, except for the sliding widows in the doors. They have holes for the latches so we have no choice but to use fairy thick high quality plexi.

[surfer-joe]

I never found a local glass shop that could do equipment curved glass replacements, nor in fact, drill the holes for latches and hinges, etc. For those you just have to bite the bullet and buy from dealer/factory. Straight and flat glass without holes isn't too much of a problem so long as it meets specifications for thickness and durability. Get it too thin and your seals won't hold it. Used to be that nearly everything was flat, but manufacturers have moved into making their creatures objects of beauty. No, actually they have vastly improved operator visibility with curved glass. Most local shops can't do much custom fitting of safety glass beyond sanding the edges a bit to fit. Your local shops are usually cheaper for flat glass, depends on how far out in the boondocks you are you know. But I have been surprised occasionally by dealer prices being cheaper.

There is a good market in used or wrecked equipment parts however and I've bought a ton of glass from various sources for Cats and Internationals or Hough's. Make sure the seller warrants the glass including shipping. There are several reputable scrappers that I bought from that are still in business. Rock and Dirt has good listings of them and the internet does to.

Yeah, cab and sheet metal stuff would be very hard to get for the old Michigan's now. Volvo never did carry much for them nor does Hitachi. Too bad, they were a good competitor for Cat in the Midwest. I had the first 475 loader, the one with the custom fenders that was in the Houston Con-Expo in 1980 on a coal strip project in Kentucky. It had been abused pretty badly and very poorly maintained for about five years (along with everything else there) by the coal company and it never was worth spending enough money on to get back to a reliable and efficient condition. Had some 475's at Bethlehem's steel works in Gary, Indiana too. Between them and the Hough 400's, they were the mainstay of the slag-processing industry for several years till Cat got the 992C involved with special modifications.

Plexi-glass works OK as a hole filler, but it gets dusted and scratched so fast, and if it breaks you have an edge sharper than a razor, worse than glass. Dangerous! Better than nothing though in cold weather.