Stupid windshield question...
Road Master
Joined: Sep 2008
Posts: 1,240
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From: Milwaukee area
Originally Posted by another forum I read
...if you could peer over the top edge of any windshield and see a spot approximately 25-30' ahead of you on the road, the windshield would be of correct height. Pick out a spot at an appropriate distance ahead, measure down from the top edge to the point, looking through the windshield.
1. Removed windshield, leaving brackets in place.
2. Placed blue painters tape in a swatch about 12" wide over the place where I estimated the cut would be made. (The tape will prevent the foot of the jigsaw from scratching the lexan, and will also produce a cleaner cut).
3. Make a paper template by tracing the top contour of the windshield onto construction paper. Then marking a spot on the tape, trace the contour onto the blue tape so as to have a line to follow while making the cut.
4. Carefully cut the new contour using a fine-tooth jigsaw blade(24 teeth per inch), being very careful not to hurry and to let the saw be the one who did the work.
** Make a test cut about an inch above intended cut. This would allow testing the blade, see the quality of the cut, get used to cutting the windshield, etc. **
5. After cutting, leave the tape in place and attach the windshield to the mounting brackets.
6. Using a sanding block and medium and fine sandpaper, smooth all the freshly-cut edges and make minor adjustments to the contour until satisfied.
** Use various sand papers from about 200 grit up to about 1000 grit for the final finish. Smooth the edges to a slightly rounded shape by running some fine paper at an angle of about 45 degrees to the screen. This would make the edges much less sharp (and dangerous) and also may serve to reduce wind noise at high speed.**
1. Removed windshield, leaving brackets in place.
2. Placed blue painters tape in a swatch about 12" wide over the place where I estimated the cut would be made. (The tape will prevent the foot of the jigsaw from scratching the lexan, and will also produce a cleaner cut).
3. Make a paper template by tracing the top contour of the windshield onto construction paper. Then marking a spot on the tape, trace the contour onto the blue tape so as to have a line to follow while making the cut.
4. Carefully cut the new contour using a fine-tooth jigsaw blade(24 teeth per inch), being very careful not to hurry and to let the saw be the one who did the work.
** Make a test cut about an inch above intended cut. This would allow testing the blade, see the quality of the cut, get used to cutting the windshield, etc. **
5. After cutting, leave the tape in place and attach the windshield to the mounting brackets.
6. Using a sanding block and medium and fine sandpaper, smooth all the freshly-cut edges and make minor adjustments to the contour until satisfied.
** Use various sand papers from about 200 grit up to about 1000 grit for the final finish. Smooth the edges to a slightly rounded shape by running some fine paper at an angle of about 45 degrees to the screen. This would make the edges much less sharp (and dangerous) and also may serve to reduce wind noise at high speed.**
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Road Warrior
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 1,643
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From: Palm Beach
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6th Gear
Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 11
Likes: 0
From: Seattle, WA
As you can tell from the many responses, cutting a windscreen down is a simple task and commonly done by owners. To the very good advice you have already got, I would just reinforce the need to keep protective tape in place while sanding. Touching the surface of the screen with 200 grit paper will put some nasty scratches on it that take a while to buff out. If you are at all dexterous, you can do the job in 1.5 hours. I used 400 grit as my finish sanding and the result is a light satin look to the edge. The result, following the instructions on this thread, is quite nice. I personally find the top edge too distracting if it is right under my line of sight, and I lowered the top of the screen an additional inch. In addition, I increased the rake of the windscreen (I have a HD Compact on my Dyna) 5 degrees or so, which eliminated the slight helmet shake I was occasionally feeling at freeway speeds. Adding the rake also effectively drops the windscreen an additional inch, all of which seems to quiet the ride at 70 mph.
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creekhed1
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Mar 8, 2009 06:42 PM
