Broken front glass of GE locomotive style TV

[yagosaga]

Hi,

I have got a very nice GE locomotive style TV with a broken front glass. Does somebody has an idea whether it is possible to fix the glass, or to make a replica of it?

Kind regards,
Eckhard

[radotvguy]

thats a fairly common set and they do come up on ebay , keep your eye open and eventually one will pop up

[kx250rider]

What a coincidence! I had one a long time ago with that exact type of crack. You could get a new piece made by a glass shop, but it would cost about $50, then you'd have to figure out a way to paint the inside of the glass correctly. That was a bad design, with the edges of the glass exposed. It doesn't take much to crack that 2-ply safety glass from the edges.

Charles

[Tony V]

I have one but in my case the glass is missing.
-Tony

[wa2ise]

Thinking out loud here... Maybe the stuff used to fix chipped car windshields might work for this?

[yagosaga]

I have a glazier here in the city who has done some glassworks for me in the past. He probably can make a glass of similar size. But how can I manage the printings and paintings on the glass?

- Eckhard

[Old1625]

Any glass shop worth their salt should be able to form and cut that piece of glass. The artwork painted on the back is going to be the major challenge.

But the chief concern I have is that the cabinet itself has probably become unglued at its edges to the point where there is no longer any dimensional stability, and the cabinet is freely wracking with handling, thus the diagonal crack. Put on a new piece of glass, and you'll be fine--until you need to pick up and move the set elsewhere, and you may be back to square one.

The cabinet is probably chock-a-block full of triangular pieces of wood stock in all the inside corners. You need to make sure that all the joint gluings are still intact on these if you want it to keep the next piece of glass you install.

[bgadow]

The gray shouldn't be too bad; you could maybe do the striping with some vinyl stripe, or find a sign painter/professional striper to hand paint it on. I'm assuming the General Electric lettering is also painted on the back, and that would be tough. Probably a way to get it made in vinyl, too...that's pretty small for a sign machine.

[Tony V]

The GE emblems are available online so that wouldnt be a problem. Luckily for you guys, you have the glass still so you can make the "Double D" size just right for painting. One good thing is behind the glass theres still the metal bezel that surrounds the tube. I've thought of getting a glass cut and reverse painting it to replace my missing one, i just havent got around to it. Luckily the tv works so i'm ahead as far as that goes. I still dont have the correct knobs for either the tv or the glass, so that has to be taken care of also. From what i heard, most of these glasses got broke from people tightening the two knobs at the top too tight causing the break. Every cracked one i've seen radiates from one knob or the other.
-Tony

[merrylander]

Why not use a piece of 1/4" Plexiglas it won't crack. Then use a software program like FrameMaker or Visio to draw the artwork, color it, and send it to a large format printer. Cut out the printed artwork and set it under the Plexiglas.

[kx250rider]

Originally Posted by merrylander

Why not use a piece of 1/4" Plexiglas it won't crack. Then use a software program like FrameMaker or Visio to draw the artwork, color it, and send it to a large format printer. Cut out the printed artwork and set it under the Plexiglas.

What a great idea!!!! I'd try it. Only trick will be to get the correct arc on the top. Maybe find a wash tub or something with a circumference that matches the curve, then trace it?

Charles

[merrylander]

Originally Posted by kx250rider

What a great idea!!!! I'd try it. Only trick will be to get the correct arc on the top. Maybe find a wash tub or something with a circumference that matches the curve, then trace it?

Charles

Both Visio and FrameMaker can scale a curve for you, you just need to know the dimension from the center of the curve to a flat line drawn between the end points. Printing is helped if you have a 36" wide DesignJet 350C like mine.

[ohohyodafarted]

As for the art work, I would place the old part on a large flat bed scanner at Kinkos. Then i would have it printed in full color on a color printer onto clear acetate film and sandwich it between two pieces of thin glass cut to the exact shape and dimensions as the original glass.

The other alternative if you are willing to spend the moeny, is to take the newly cut glass to a silk screener along with the old part. A silk screener can photo the old art work on the old glass and print it on the new glass in multiple colors. This would cost about $75 per color, so I would vote for the Kinkos method because the value of the set is not that great.

Good Luck!

[Phil Nelson]

Once, I took a radio panel into Kinko's for scanning. They refused to let me put it on their scanner bed. Nothing allowed there but paper or equivalent. Risk of scratching the glass, I suppose.

Phil

[Adam]

I got one of these with the glass cracked on it too, it sounds like not too many of these sets survived with the glass intact.