How to Maintain Your Glass Breaker Tool

The glass breaker isn’t a tool you’ll deploy every other day unless you have deplorable driving skills or misfortune simply appears to follow you around (pun intended).

Due to its infrequent use, a glass breaker should ideally last for years without needing replacing. However, that isn’t always the case.

Like most emergency tools, a glass breaker’s durability comes down to proper care and maintenance.

This post shall serve as a comprehensive guide to glass breakers, with a focus on how to care for the tools to enhance their performance and longevity. 

Introducing the Glass Breaker

A glass breaker, also known as a window breaker, is a handheld tool designed to break glass windows to create an escape point during emergencies. It’s a standard safety device in automobiles, usually deployed by occupants to egress an overturned car.

The glass breaker is critical in minimizing road fatalities by allowing crash victims to escape life-threatening emergencies. The safety device is particularly instrumental during roll-over auto accidents, although you can also deploy it to egress a burning or submerging vehicle.

Glass breakers are specially engineered to shatter tempered glass.

Besides motor vehicle-related scenarios, a glass breaker may also facilitate safe escape from buildings during security situations like fires or bomb scares. It allows a building’s occupants to exit through multiple emergency windows rather than crowd at the doorways.

Tips for Maintaining a Glass Breaker Tool

1. Familiarize Yourself with the Glass Breaker’s Anatomy

The business end of most glass breakers features a sharp-pointed metal tip commonly made from tungsten carbide. Many manufacturers prefer tungsten carbide for its strength and corrosion resistance.

A glass breaker’s other components are typically made of plastic.

2. Know the Different Glass Breaker Types

Glass breakers fall into two different categories, namely;

Emergency Hammer

True to its name, the emergency hammer is a glass breaker fashioned like the traditional hammer. It goes by several other monikers, such as the bus hammer, bus mallet, dotty hammer, and safety mallet.

Most emergency hammers are found in public transport systems, particularly buses and trains. You can also find them in public buildings, including hotels and government installations.

Spring-Loaded Glass Breakers

If you consider the emergency hammer rather large and indiscreet, you may opt for a spring-loaded glass breaker instead.

Most spring-loaded glass breakers are small enough to be incorporated into everyday carry (EDC) items like flashlights, manual multi-tools, and bracelets. They’re also more versatile and can be used underwater, where the traditional hammer-shaped glass breaker would be challenging to deploy.

To operate a spring-loaded glass breaker, draw the metal tip against the target window, pull it back, and release. This activates the spring, making light work of window breaking.

3. Understand Your Glass Breaker’s Capabilities

Glass breakers are meant to shatter tempered glass windows. These safety devices aren’t effective against laminated glass, which you can only break using other sharp tools like chisels and hammers.

But even for tempered glass, you’ll need to apply a minimum force to smash the window for safe vehicle escape. Most tempered glass requires a force between 20,000 and 24,000 pounds per square inch (PSI) to break.

Now, 20,000 PSI may sound like a lot of force. However, it’s easily achievable with a window breaker.

It’s important to apply considerable pressure while using a glass breaker, balancing between gentleness and brute force. This improves your safety by preventing glass shrapnel from flying back to you. Besides, it preserves the glass breaker’s loading mechanism.

4. Avoid Harsh Cleaning Agents

Spring-loaded glass breakers embedded into wearable devices seldom require cleaning. But if they ever do, the proper way to clean the tool is using the combination of warm water and a soft cloth.

Damp the clothing material into warm water and squeeze any excess water. Then, use the cloth to wipe the plastic components of a glass breaker to remove any dust and dirt.

When done, use a clean towel to dry the glass breaker completely. Letting moisture linger on the tool can accelerate the corrosion of its metallic components, including the tungsten carbide.

The hammer-style glass breaker is easier to clean due to its larger design. But just like its spring-loaded counterpart, cleaning is only necessary if the tool is visibly covered in dust, dirt, or grime. In most cases, you can simply wipe down your glass breaker with a dry cloth to remove dust.

If your glass breaker is incorporated into a more sensitive EDC item like a flashlight, extreme care is paramount to avoid getting water to the flashlight’s electrical system.

5. Follow Safe Storage Tips

A glass window breaker is best kept in accessible areas. Common locations you can store the tool in your automobile include the gear shifter, rear-view mirror, sun visor, and headrest.

However, the most important thing is to ensure these storage locations remain cool and dry always to prevent corrosion of a glass breaker’s metallic parts.

The good news is that the business tip of glass breakers (both spring-loaded and hammer-shaped) is reloaded after every use. This reloading mechanism preserves the tungsten carbide tip from damage and minimizes exposure to harsh environmental factors that could cause rusting.

Wrap Up

Following the above guidelines is an ingenious way to improve a glass breaker’s performance and durability. However, note that a glass breaker’s efficiency ultimately depends on its quality and design. So, be sure to conduct in-depth research while shopping for this emergency implement.

See more automotive posts here

Becky

Meet the award-nominated UK lifestyle blogger behind Spirited Puddle Jumper – a mum of three living in South East London! Becky shares the real ups and downs of family life, parenting tips, and lifestyle inspiration, proving that being a mum doesn’t mean you stop being fun or having other interests! Follow along for honest insights into UK family life and opinions on a whole range of topics, from travel and food, to beauty reviews, home and DIY, business and health and wellness.