Adventures in Windsheild Repair

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Meng, Wondering about the type of clouser eyes that you were using. Tungsten eyes are very dangerous. They are like a 22 slug when accelerated..

It wasn’t even a long cast,  but my size 1 little yellow clouser was the end for the tempered glass port side  window on the Crestliner last weekend.    I cleaned it up and started searching for a replacement window.   Ebay had a used glass window for sale for $850 with frame but I didn’t bid on it fast enough and it sold.  UDP Fabrication offered to make me a glass one for $900 (OEM) or a 1/4 inch Plexigrlas one for $325.   UDP sais it would take at least 4 weeks to build and ship from the time I sent them the entire frame of the window. I will probably work on getting a glass replacement, but any way I do this for glass is going to take months  I decided to build one in the meantime with a $60 piece of 1/8 inch Lexan.   I talked with some boat builders on the internet and I actually saw some windshields that were 5 years old and they looked great.  The reason I chose Lexan over 1.4 inch Plex is the ability to bend Lexan to 90 degress without heat.   Also, 1/8 inch Lexan is 200 times stronger than tempered glass.  I can hit it all day with casts which I am trying to avoid. The easiest way to make a perfect template to cut out for the port side is to built it off the starboard window.   I traced the window to a template piece of paper and measured out how big of a square piece of Lexan I needed.   I bought a 4ft by 4ft piece from tap plastics.  I initially thought it might be cool to build a tinted one for the passenger side,  but they were out of them and I didn’t want to wait a week so I bought the clear. I cut the Lexan from the template and tried it in the  track  without gasket material and it fit perfectly.  I ordered the 1/4 by 3/4 inch rubber window gasket material from a boat supply store and  lined and lined the channel with it,  The Lexan wedges between the gasket material and the aluminum channel for a waterproof seal. Yes, I know its not tempered glass and I may have to replace it if it yellows or crazes,  but its stronger than glass,  It cuts the wind and it looks great.   I can built 15 of these for the cost of single used glass one and it was a snap to build.  2 hours to be exact.

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