i’ve read some discussions about replacing the red plastic lenses with various things, but i’ve never actually read a post where anyone actually did it.

i have issues where i see blurred images on the very edges of my lenses. as i have never owned another vb, i’m assuming its from the way the previous owner cleaned them. when i had my vb apart for repairs i found that the inside of the lenses are absolutely perfect, while the outside is slightly scuffed. it got me thinking about what could be used to replace them. i was considering trying to find someone to make me glass inserts, and during that thought i started to think about the shape. the shape gives the vb an iconic look but it has nothing to do with the game play. so perhaps some flat glass inserts would be the way to go.

has anyone used their vb without the lenses? does the red tint of the lenses make the vb better/worse in any way?

i wanted to get some ideas of what would work and perhaps start a nice discussion about it. what do you guys think?

You can use a 3M buffing kit to clear the lenses but be REALLY careful

I still want custom green lenses. It would be really cool!

Dreammary wrote:
I still want custom green lenses. It would be really cool!

Well, unfortunately the LED’s are still red. There might be a tiny bit of green spectrum being emitted, but I doubt it would really be visible; green filters would just block most all of the display.

Lester Knight wrote:
i have issues where i see blurred images on the very edges of my lenses. as i have never owned another vb, i’m assuming its from the way the previous owner cleaned them. when i had my vb apart for repairs i found that the inside of the lenses are absolutely perfect, while the outside is slightly scuffed. it got me thinking about what could be used to replace them. i was considering trying to find someone to make me glass inserts, and during that thought i started to think about the shape. the shape gives the vb an iconic look but it has nothing to do with the game play. so perhaps some flat glass inserts would be the way to go.

Grab your local yellow pages and look up “Plastic Supplies” — call around, find one that offers “sheets/rods/tubes”, and one should sell you a bottle of plastic polish. It’s a cream-colored thin paste (rather like fine mud).

Use some fresh toilet paper (it’s soft and grit-free), put a little dab of polish on the folded-up-paper, and buff in circles until the polish is all dried and gone, then keep buffing until the plastic is all smooth and shiny again. I think you’ll be really happy with the results.

The only time plastic polish hasn’t worked for me is when the plastic is coated with an ANTI-SCRATCH film. Polycarbonate sheets often have “Mar-Guard”. Polish doesn’t make Mar-Guard clear again, it just fogs it badly…

Can you recommend for me a brand name polish that you know would work? I tried calling around a bit and got a few different answers, as it seems no one was sure what would work exactly.

I’m still thinking about trying to find someone to make me custom glass inserts. Can someone recommend a way to get red glass or perhaps another product that I should be researching?

Lester Knight wrote:
Can you recommend for me a brand name polish that you know would work? I tried calling around a bit and got a few different answers, as it seems no one was sure what would work exactly.

I don’t remember the brand. There are several grades of grit, mine was medium-to-coarse. It was a white bottle looked rather like a bottle of sun-block, with red printing. Anyone in the plastics business should be able to help.

I’m still thinking about trying to find someone to make me custom glass inserts. Can someone recommend a way to get red glass or perhaps another product that I should be researching?

Glass is pretty easy to cut, as long as you cut straight lines. Look up a stained glass place in your phone book & ask for clear non-textured red. But — I had problems in cold weather with the lenses fogging over (until they warmed up), bet it’s worse with glass — greater thermal inertia.

There are Dremmel saw blades available; sadly the official Dremmel #400 and #406 (coarse & fine) blades are no longer made, law suits from stupid people who cut their fingers off (not joking). But you can get blades-and-mandrels, a steady hand and you could just cut away the clear red plastic in seconds and then glue in your glass. Hold the Dremmel tool firmly or it will “kick back” and cut your fingers off (the reason for the law suits). Sounds more dangerous than it is, if you just hold it firmly.

Those who lacerated their fingers are the ones who probably had to struggle to make two-digit-IQ’s…

thanks for the reply. i’ll look around some more and try to find the right polish.

i’ve replaced my security screws with regular screws, and i am not opposed to opening up my vb. i am thinking about taking out the lenses and then shopping around for some glass (or some type of plastic) inserts. i’m pretty sure that i can find a place here, i just need to get it for the right price and make sure i have the tools to cut it.

i want to experiment with some flat lense covers first. i think the shape of the lenses is causing some of my issues. when i look out the corner of my eye i see blurred images, but if i move my head and then look over everything is clear. i have some clear plex here that looks to be about the right thickness. i am going to cut a bit off, as soon as i have time, and see how it works. right now i just want to toy with the shape of the lenses. if i like it then i’ll shop around for the right material.

i just saw a car show on tv that was building a gaser drag car and they used colored lexan. perhaps that would work?

Lexan (polycarbonate) is inherently soft; you can actually bend it like aluminum. (Cold bend it — you can’t heat polycarbonate unless you dry it in an oven overnight before heat-bending it like acrylic, polycarbonate likes to bubble from the water it absorbs from the air.) A high-speed impact can fracture it, though it’s the stuff used for “bullet-proof-glass”. Bullets will just embed themselves into it, without going through if the plastic is thick enough. And because of its softness it’s the one that gets coated with scratch-resistant film (Mar-Guard for one). Plastic polish will take scratches out of plastic sunglasses and restore them to “new” condition — unless they’re polycarbonate and coated; then the more you polish the foggier they get.

Someone put a hammer through the driver’s-side window of my 1974 Capri once; I cut a piece of light-gray Tuffak (or was it Lexan?) Mar-Guarded 1/4″ polycarbonate; it could be “marked”, but it would throw the hammer right back at the jackass who tried that again. Sadly it was perfectly flat, the original window was curved vertically, made it hard to roll down and harder to roll up…

Yes you could use colored Lexan; but colored acrylic is harder, and glass harder still. No matter what you put in it won’t look as good as the original; I would try the plastic polish first.

🙂