Poll: Smoked or clear glass

[solid187]

Curious as to what the users here prefer....

[shardian]

It really depends on the game/bezel art/monitor condition.
I just finished the bezel on my Jungle King and it is a 1/4" glass on top w/ the bezel art on 1/8" smoked plexi. It looks super sharp that way. I also have a game with monitor burn - It looks very good with smoked plexi. Midway cabinets on the other hand (mortal kombay, etc) always look very sharp with clear plexi and a full bezel. Smoked on one of those doesn't look very good IMO.

[ChadTower]

Vectors look much better with smoked.

[javeryh]

I've used smoked (grey) tinted glass on both of my cabinets and I love it.  I won't ever use clear.  I don't put any art underneath the glass though because it tends to be dulled considerably.

[TOK]

Smoked, always. Looks so much better.

[Green Giant]

For those of you that have smoked, where did you pick it up?  Local glass shops? 

And what did you pay, so I have an idea what to look for?

[javeryh]

I got mine at a local glass shop - it was 3/8" thick by 18-3/4" by 18-3/8" and tempered.  I paid $32 for it.  Not sure if that's a good price or not though...

[Apollo]

5mm grey toughened glass with slightly bevelled edges NZ$80

[Xam]

For those of you that have smoked, where did you pick it up?  Local glass shops? 

And what did you pay, so I have an idea what to look for?

I got mine at a local plastics supplier. Got 2 pieces of 1/8 inch smoked for $18.

Xam

[Kangum]

I use clear tempered glass but it is a arcade depot pacman kit. you would not be able to see the underlay otherwise.

tinted looks pretty cool on an upright though. every so often someone posts this crazy cool machine they made from scratch that clearly took millions of hours and looks so polished then they just tossed a monitor in with no trim or anything. so it ruines it in a way.

[Wade]

For newer monitors, CLEAR is the best.  Smoked is best for old arcade monitors with burn or light grey tubes. 

Practically ALL newer monitors come with a dark tint ALREADY ON THE TUBE.  Using tint over top of a newer monitor would only make sense if you were trying to hide a bad install job... and even then, I'd recommend just fixing the install to look better.

This change occurred mostly during the 90's.  It's hard to find a game with tinted glass from the late 90's on, and a lot of them from the early 90's had already abandoned tinted glass (such as the MK series).

Wade

[Crowquill]

The Crazy Kong cabinet that I converted to MAME already had smoked plexi, but I'm very glad it did. The bezel is just black posterboard. Games with a black background (like virtually anything before 1984) just kind of "appear" with none of the monitor parts or bezel really visible. It's really sharp.

My Primal Rage cab that I use for JAMMA games has clear glass and you can see every imperfection in both the monitor and the surrounding bezel as well as the crappy paint job that Atari did on the inside of the cabinet (should have all been painted black, but it wasn't).

My Neo-Geo 2-slot dedicated came with smoked. I had my doubts being full-screen full-color graphics, but it really does look cleaner and much more finished with the tinted glass. Doesn't dull the graphics near as much as I expected.

I'm going to find a way to implement smoked plexi or glass into my cocktail project soon. First I have to find affordable glass for the top, though.

Does anyone have a preference between glass and plexi? Is there much of a cost difference?

[needlesmcgirk]

I'm still trying to decide what to use for my glass. I am using a 27 inch tv right now as my monitor so I'm not sure what is best.  Also, I have no idea where I would get the glass from.

[vidmouse]

I'm still trying to decide what to use for my glass. I am using a 27 inch tv right now as my monitor so I'm not sure what is best.  Also, I have no idea where I would get the glass from.

I'm using a 27" tv as well, found that clear plexi worked just fine for me
after I got a painted bezel in place.  Found it at Lowe's in the hardware/
screen door section (it's used to replace plexi on screen doors, windowed
garage doors, etc).  About $18 for what I needed, and they cut it to size.

[needlesmcgirk]

I wonder how much better glass would be than plexi though.  Seems plexi scratches easy and just looks kinda iffy.

[Dexter]

Make sure if you're ordering smoked glass, its grey smoked as some glaziers only supply bronze smoked and will sell it by default if you don't specify properly. I needed a top for a cocktail cab and had to phone 3 places before I found the right stuff.