Behind the Scenes: How Every DWA Windshield Gets Built From Scratch

From a Shopify "cha-ching" to a box on your porch. Here's the whole UTV manufacturing ride.

Stop One: Your Order Lands on the Shop Floor

It all starts with hitting the checkout button, Shopify does its thing, and your order gets pushed straight to the DWA manufacturing floor and into our newly developed proprietary manufacturing software.

No sticky notes on a wall, no printed out pieces of paper asking to be blown away by the wind. Nope, your build becomes an electronic ticket that travels with your order through every station in the shop.

Not only that...

"We are the only UTV accessories manufacturing company that provides you with 3-6 email updates on where your order is in the build process. You'll always know the status of your order!" -DWA

And that ticket is specific. Which machine are you riding? Two-seat or four-seat? Front windshield or rear? Full Vault Cab Enclosure? Tint options or clear? Powder coat in standard textured black or something with a little more color pizazz? Every one of those choices changes what gets cut, drilled, and welded downstream. 

That's why we build to order instead of stacking pallets of "close enough" in a warehouse.

One heads-up while we're giving you the inside details: because everything is made to order, lead times move with demands. Winter is DWA's seasonal busy time so don't delay getting your order in if you are wanting to make those cold rides more comfortable!

If you ever want the real-time scoop on where the shop stands, our manufacturing and lead times page is the best place to look. Or of course, you can always contact us. 

Stop Two: Cutting the Aluminum Frames

Now the fun part begins. Raw aluminum sheets hit our brand new, state of the art CNC machine, software loads your frame's CAD files and tada! Out comes out a fresh frame shaped for your exact order. This is all done in house, which means we're not waiting on anybody else to get our geometry right and neither are you.

Next, the aluminum gets some finish sanding, precision bending on the break press, riveting, hinges, welding, clean up and finessing. This is where a stack of aluminum sheets begin to look like a Side by Side windshield frame.

Is everything square and true? Nothing moves forward until your frame is perfect. No worries about twisting like a pretzel once it's bolted to your machine.

Here's why doing this ourselves matters so much: every machine is a little different, and every model year brings its own personality and quirks. Building frames in house means we can fix a fitment issue in an afternoon instead of days of waiting after filing a support ticket with a supplier and hoping for the best.

Your frame is cut for your machine, not a "universal fit" and definitely not a "fingers crossed" situation.

ADDED BONUS: We can fabricate and build custom orders too! If your machine has a custom roll cage or you need other custom solutions for your machine, click here to get a free quote for custom orders. 

Cut, notched, and welded in house, one frame at a time

Built one at a time, by hand, right here in Utah.

"Nobody here is trying to crank out the most SXS Windshields or Vault Cab Enclosures. We aim to send out the ones that fit right the first time." -DWA

Stop Three: Cutting the Glass to Fit the Frame

Once the frame is squared away, the glass gets cut to match it, and yes, that happens right here too. We're only working with 1/4" DOT approved safety glass, the good stuff. Just like your car windows, this glass won't shatter into injury inducing shards, thus raising the protection for you and your passengers.

Each pane is precisely cut for the frame it's going into, so the two pieces are matched perfectly. Edges get finished and the glass is prepped to seat properly in the frame, which is exactly the kind of detail you never notice until it's wrong and water's dripping on your knee.

Want tint? That's an option and it looks way cool. It's the one of only two steps we don't do in-house. Your glass heads out to a tint specialist we trust, then comes back to us for assembly. Everything else regarding your glass stays under our roof, which keeps quality control tight.

Stop Four: The Pre-Powder Test Fit (AKA the Dry Run)

This is the step that separates a good shop from a frustrating one. Before anything gets a finish on it, we assemble the whole unit, frame, glass, vents, hardware, clamps, the works, and make sure it all plays nicely together.

Why bother assembling something we're about to take apart? Because powder coat hides nothing. If a hole is off, a bracket is tweaked, or a vent doesn't seat the way it should, we want to catch it now, while the part is still bare metal and easy to fix. Once it's coated, an "oops" gets expensive and time consuming and brings a cascade of delays.

So the dry run rehearsal is essential. Everything goes together, gets eyeballed and handled, and gets adjusted until it fits the way it's supposed to. Only then does it earn a trip to the powder coat finish line.

The dry run: fully assembled and checked before any finish goes on.

Stop Five: Off to Powder Coat

Time to make it not only pretty but tough. Your frame heads out to our trusted powder coat partner where it gets a durable, baked-on finish that shrugs off sun, dust, mud, rocks, and whatever else Mother Nature can throw at it. Standard texture black is our go-to, and honestly? It just looks badass on a UTV...mean, matte, and ready for business or play.

Powder coat beats paint for this job because it's applied as a dry powder and cured under heat so it lays down thick and even. It is proven to hold up far better against chips and scratches. Trail abuse is real, and your frame's finish should be able to take a hit.

While the frame's away getting dressed, the rest of your order keeps moving in the shop, glass, hardware, vents, seals, and packing materials all staged and waiting. By the time the coated frame lands back on the bench, everything it needs is already sitting right there. Efficiency baby.

Stop Six: Post-Powder Assembly & Quality Assurance

Fresh out of the oven and cooled down, your frame comes back to the bench for the real final build. Now it's time to put it together for keeps: glass seated and secured, vents installed and working smoothly, seals properly placed, hardware torqued down, brackets lined up, and everything snugged the way it should be.

Then comes the part we take very personally, quality assurance. Every unit gets a hands-on inspection before it's allowed anywhere near a shipping box. Here's a peek at what we're looking at:

What We Check Before It Ships

• Frame square and true
• Welds clean, solid, and dressed
• Powder coat coverage, no thin spots or runs
• Glass seated correctly with no gaps, cracks or scratches
• Vents opening and closing smoothly, and sealing properly
• All hardware present, tightened and torqued to spec
• Fitment confirmed against the ordered machine
• Tint, color, and options match the order
• Cleaned and wiped down of dust and smudges

If something isn't perfect, it doesn't pass, it doesn't ship. It goes back to the bench, gets fixed, and gets checked again. That's not a slogan, that's just how a shop with its logo and name embedded onto the product has to operate.

Final assembly and QA.

Stop Seven: Packed Carefully and Shipped to Your Door

A windshield that survives the shop but dies in a delivery truck is still a bad windshield. So we pack like it's going into battle: glass protected, edges cushioned, corners reinforced, bubble wrapped to the hilt, hardware bagged and accounted for, and everything secured so nothing shifts, rattles, or slams into anything else on the way to you.

Then it's out the door and onto a truck, headed for your driveway, porch or your shop. Tracking goes out, you get the notification, and a few days later you're standing there with a  product that a real person in St. George, Utah built specifically for you and your machine.

Bubble wrap, bubble wrap and more bubble wrap.

That's the whole story, no off-shore mystery, no warehouse roulette, no "we'll figure out the fit later." Aluminum cut in house. Glass cut in house. Assembled, tested, checked, and packed by hand. Six stops, one goal: a SXS Vault Cab Enclosure or windshields that will last for years and years.

Thanks for trusting us with helping make your machine exactly what you want it to be. That is our passion and we take it. Now go get it dirty!

Checked, boxed, and on its way to your rig.

Accidents do happen with shipping or on the trail.

"That's why DWA now offers complete shipping and Ride Hard Coverage Extended Warranty Plans for an extra layer of protection and piece of mind. Check them out here." -DWA