Odd question

[shooter]

Sorry for intruding on your site gentleman, but I have an odd question that some of you may be able to answer. Im a police officer and firearms instructor. I have a particular brand of sights on my handgun. The sights are fiber optic and tritium and fairly pricey. After exposing the fiber optics to carbon from gunfire and occasional solvents from cleaning, the fiber optic becomes dull and has to be replaced. I was considering using windshield repair resin to cover the fiber optic where it sits in the sight, so it is not exposed to the carbon and solvents. I'm hoping the resin allows the fiber optic to take in the light and protects it from everything else. The question I have i...will it work like Im thinking, or will the resin discolor, crack, or not hold up (guns get hot). Can any of you offer advice on this?

[usmc68]

Have you even contacted the manufacturer, you can't be the only person with this problem? How would you be able to cure the resin?
Why not just try clear nail polish?
The mfg has to have your answer. Good luck.

[DryStar]

Diamond Fusion windshield treatment may help you. A glass resin would most likely not. Try contacting Diamond Fusion and see what they have to say. Not sure if they're another scam or the real deal...quess you have figure that one for yourself!

[Brent Deines]

The sights are made by encasing scintillating fiber within an optically clear polymer posts and blocks. You would have to coat one with resin and put it side by side in an accelerated weather machine for awhile to find out for sure but I think you would find that the resin would weather at approximately the same rate as the clear polymer posts and blocks. Not sure what sights you have but I would guess replacement fiber optics are somewhere between $10 and $20. Not worth the time and trouble for an option that probably won't add longevity to the posts and blocks in my opinion.

[shooter]

It's a problem the manufacturer has yet to address. Awesome sights, just not awesome durability for as many rounds as I put through the gun. Perhaps I didnt explain enough in my initial post. Clear nail polish would help Im sure, but Im wanting to fill the cavity in the sight itself with epoxy or resin. I tried some windsheild repair resin on some old sights and it looks good, nice clarity, just like glass and a thick covering over the fiber optics, I just dont know how it would stand up to heat and cleaning solvents. Im curious if anyone has an idea on how the windshield repair resin would hold up to the heat and cleaning solvents. Will it discolor, can it be cleaned, will it melt, will it crack? I don't have a weather machine, so that's out. The fiber optic rod is easy to change but it is attached to the tritium vial. Tritium is expensive. Fiber Optic rods are dirt cheap, but not the tritium. As it's radioactive, it's not something I can pick up at the sporting goods shop.

[Brent Deines]

I would be happy to send you a free resin sample if you want to give it a try. Call me first and we can discuss what type of resin will work best and how best to use it for your application. We have customers who buy resin for all kinds of things other than windshield repair, most of which never would have occurred to me. Who knows, it might open up a whole new market for us.

You could do some testing with heat and solvent without having a machine. Using a heat gun you could approximate the heat generated from the weapon and you could mist a sample with solvent or soak it for that matter to see what happens. Before testing on an expensive sight you could coat a small block of clear acrylic. Run your tests side by side on an uncoated acrylic block and a coated acrylic bloc to see which one holds up better. You could also test that way to see if the resin will allow sufficient light to reach the fiber optic.

Keep in mind a windshield in Phoenix is subject to very hot temperatures for extended periods of time and often exposed to a variety of chemicals, although not typically anything quite like a gun solvent. I've never seen a good resin crack under those conditions but over time discoloration and deterioration will occur just as with any acrylic. What I'm trying to say is that a good resin is quite durable under sever conditions but I don't know of anyone who has tested it under the exact conditions your sights are subject to.

It would be interesting to find out.