Replacement window options F30

[mike cunningham]

A good review of the types of plastic one can use use for the replacement lens.

https://hatchmasters.com/acrylic-vs-polycarbonate/

Also, did some errands today and had a discussion with a powder coating guy. He convinced me to powder coat vs re-anodize. He can snad blast and burnish the existing frame then clear coat so the frame color is close to original. It will be shinier so it gives me motivation to do the rest of them.

[Tricia]

Allen,
I've finally pulled out my leftover gasket from the garage. The opening ports are Bomar. You can order the gasket from pompanette.com It's adhesive backed, so a little different from the original, but it works fine. The part number is P3000-20. The same gasket is also known as P100-53, P100-51, P100-52, P3000-21, P3000-22. It will come as a continuous length which you cut to fit, and it will come with instructions.
Hope that helps.
Tricia

[Northern Light]

Thank-you Tricia! I will contact them.

Allen

[Jefffriday]

Great Post, Thanks you so much, doing this soon, all 4, the the opening hatches..

[mike cunningham]

Wow, what an experience. Now have three of the four fixed ports replaced. I have not used any adhesive to attach the port frames to the hull. I used butyl tape exclusively. I have compressed the seal using the interior frames which are screwed into the exterior frame and do a fine job of compressing the frame against the butyl and establishing a bulletproof water seal. I really like this approach because removal clean up and and window replacement next time around is vastly simplified.

A couple of additional comments. As mentioned, I used dow 795 and butyl to adhere and seal the glass to the frame. The 795 (and other sealants) was a pain due to the curing of material in the nozzle between window installs which, in my case, were several weeks apart. I had some 4 mil pastry bags which I use for epoxy mixing and application and thought I would try squirting the sealant into the pastry bag, cut the bag tip to an opening size of my liking and do my thing. When a sealing job is completed the bag and residue go in the trash.

This worked great! The ability to control the bead was fantastic, you don't need to deal with a large unwieldy sealant applicator and you can practice your pastry making while you are at it. All this four about 15 cents a bag. Available on Amazon and elsewhere.

When the windows were sealed to frames but before installing frames in boat I tested waterproofness by putting the frames in the garage up on a couple of sawhorses then filled the frame with water (external surfaces) The frame will hold about a gallon this way so you get a pretty good test. I left them for 24 hours and watched for any dripping. Frames 1 and 3 were good but 2 had a leak. Solved this by applying some pressure to the window in order to cause the butyl to compress a bit more and form the seal. Worked like a champ.

After install I spent about 5 minutes per window driving water at them with a hose spray nozzle with special attention to the sealed edges at window and hull. Looked good.

Final test can only be done at sea with water on deck and the hull flexing in waves so we will see how that goes.The Singlehanded Farallons in coming up on the 20th and that is always a good test. I'll report back on success.... or lack thereof.

[mike cunningham]

I am writing this as a follow up to my fixed port replacement which has now endured 5000 miles of ocean passage in sometimes rough weather. I am happy to say the fixed ports were flawless in terms of leakage. However there is one weakness not of my making. During the passage the hull was exposed to several breaking waves (not the ports). I was reminded just how hard the water can strike the boat. It was like being slammed with big sandbags. On my 1986 vintage F30 the port glass is held in by adhesive only as described in previous posts. I was aboard Kynntana, another boat (Freedom 38) which sailed to Hawaii and back. I noted Kyntanna's fixed ports were protected by brackets overlapping the glass. These brackets would add additional support to the port glass in the case of a heavy boarding sea. I will be looking into fabricating similar brackets for my boat.

I also replaced all my old Beckson opening ports with new rain drain models. I bedded these with Butyl too. Absloutely no leaks frame to boat but the bloody port gaskets on one or two fo them are leaking as usual. Not as badly due to the rain drain design but still dripping. I wish someone would come up with a port which had same frame size as Beckson with properly designed gasket which did not leak!! Someone could make a killing with such a product.