Polycarbonate

You're actually standing on an inch-thick plexiglass.

like Lexan, that lights up and there's zombies right underneath, under the floor, scratching at you.

And people just go, whoa! They feel like they're instantly going to fall when the floor becomes transparent.

And nobody ever pictures something going to be underneath you.

It's water-soluble, but even so.

The problems I'm hearing with the thicker PEI plates is that, like with Lexan, they bow.

Sure.

And you can't hold them down in the middle because they're so big.

I mean, it

had Lexan windows.

Who used Lexan windows back then? I think Troy used them on George's Sniper, but other than that, that was probably the only car with Lexan windows.

Yeah.

So it was, yeah, it was all tube chassis too that Ryan built without a frame.

Yeah.

They're like those, what is it? Road armor mud flaps are like $300 a set of four for Lexan or something.

Yeah.

yeah yeah exactly they are crazy i think uh rally armor is super expensive that's a one and then there's like the it's the exact same thing i think it's rock blocks they're like half price it's just you have the little rb instead of the ra

Have you seen, this is like 90s.

mini truck mods.

Have you seen the windows that are Lexan that have like the cams that I'm talking about, like my back windows in the Tacoma or the van or whatever it, but the back window is a piece of Lexan and those cams would bend the window out.

Oh yeah.

Right.

But if you try to cut polycarbonate, something like Lexan, it absorbs the infrared energy incredibly poorly.

It doesn't vaporize at all.

It just chars, leaves a terrible burned edge and poses a massive immediate fire risk on the cutting bed.

Okay, so my original Batmobile, Bat 1, was my first car, the one I built when I was 17 years old.

And I made it out of a material called Lexan.

Lexan.

In a thicker condition, it's one-eighth of an inch on bat one, and if it was half an inch thick, it would be bulletproof.

So

And specifically, we're tackling those annoying screw mount recesses, the ones you might not use, and making them totally invisible under a decal, like they were never there.

Yeah, that's a great goal, but it throws us right into what I call the polycarbonate paradox.

See, we love Lexan because it's super flexible, right? Takes hits like a champ.

Exactly.

But getting a decal perfectly flat permanently, that needs a totally rigid, stable surface underneath.

So let's start at the beginning, surface prep.

I know people hate this part, but you're saying it's non-negotiable.

Why can't you just fill the hole on new Lexan?

He's been building greenhouses for probably 40 years, and he has sort of a prefab metal greenhouse that he builds to a number of different sizes.

If you just need to buy materials like the quality Lexan, which is what I recommend for covering them, Tommy's, again, the best guy.

I'll send you a little further away to get shade cloth and things, but if you're looking for somebody to build it for you, greenhouses, et cetera, are the folks that I recommend.

One thing, we, of course, in converting our former nursery, Shades of Green, into a public garden, Shades of Green Legacy Garden, We have taken down several greenhouses, and we've got a good deal of gently used material that we're selling for about a third of what it would cost new.

And a gentleman that works with us named Austin is the one that you would be talking to.

And Austin's here most days, at least the middle of the day, and he's the one you want to get with about whatever materials you might need.

We do have a good deal of the Lexan that still is in real good shape, along with the only lumber to use, in my opinion, is the EcoVantage, what we call thermally treated water that doesn't rot.

I'm not going to take time here on the air right now to tell you everything I know.