Window package

The window package showed up a few weeks ago and today I finally got around to picking it up from JCM Equipment. JCM Equip. is a the mechanic shop that works on my equipment and from time to time, they will off load a big delivery for me and store it. A testament to how busy Ive been with work is that I had to wait three weeks to find the time to pick up the window package.

I had the windows built by Motion Windows ( www.motionwindows.com ). I first did business with Jeff Kemp from Motion Windows about ten years ago when I restored a Carver cruising boat. Those windows gave me zero problems over the ten years I owned them. The main reason the Carver boat sold as quickly as it did in this depressed market was because of the windows.

I didnt unpack the whole window package but I did pull a few out to inspect. Im very happy with what I saw in my window package. I went with radius corners for the windows. There is no sign of the tooling required to shape the metal of the window frames. All the bends are perfectly executed with zero sign of a kink or faulty bend. The gaskets are as tight as a bulls ass and are flawless with no marring. All the reveals on the window are perfect. The powder coating is flawless. Im totally pleased.

The sliding tinted window you see in this picture is one of eight that will reside in the salon.

I went with clear windows for the four windows on the front of the wheel house. The two windows in the center front of the wheel house are fixed. The two other windows on either side of the fixed wheelhouse windows are hinged up and this is one of them.

The small tinted fixed window if for the port and starboard side of the wheel house @ the back of the wheel house.

There are nine windows in the wheel house and eight windows in the salon.

I re packed the windows in the crate they arrived in, screwed the lid back down and moved them to the back of the shop. I wont be ready to install the windows until next Spring. Ill blog more about the window package once they are installed and we can see them in more detail

Read More..

Window framing

Life and boat building have collided a bit as of late and, life won out. Now that the holidays have passed, boat building work can resume. As you can see from this picture, Winter has also settled in to our piece of the world, so the pace of life has slowed.

The foam is all trimmed, but the window openings still need some work. The work required by the openings is as much about the finished look as it is still prepping the rough openings. The rough opening in the metal is correct, but I still need to finish the opening so that the clamp ring for the window  has something to grab against. Typically, windows can either be bolted to a metal hull, or the style I have which utilizes a clamp ring to attach the window.

The wall thickness required for the windows is different than the wall thickness created by the frames on the design. The two wall thicknesss add some work, and design challenge regarding  how the finish work will look.  Fitting the clamp ring  surface now vs at the launch site will shave mega hours off of this job and keep frustration at bay.

 

Since all the window openings in the Salon are the same, I decided to start there. I decided to build all the frames on the work bench vs framing each opening in pieces. The first order of the build was deciding how I was going to join the styles and rails of the frames. Im partial to using pocket screws, but given the 1/2" thick plywood I was using, my prototype pocket screw frame turned out not near rigid enough. So given the pocket screw frame failure, I decided  to use biscuits. While biscuits take more time than pocket screws, they turned out to be the right method for this particular job.

Because I have radius windows, I had to make these frame with a radius inside corners. To make things easier, I cut the whole radius on the style pieces ( vertical piece). I made the style wide enough to accept a cleat later so I can trim the finish wall material neat to the clamp ring.  I dont need a cleat along the rail as the window will have some sort of sill on the bottom, and wall material on the header will have plenty to screw to above the window. Once I figured out the width of the style, I made a pattern, then transferred that to my work and cut it on the band saw.

 

 

 

I have enough clamps to do three window frames at a time. After an hour in the clamp, the  glue was set enough to un clamp the frames and clamp three more. I gave the frames a day for the glue to cure before I fit them in the openings. Fitting the frames required no more than pinning them in place using my brad nail er and some 1 1/4" brads. While doing the metal work to the super structure,  I had carefully bolted blocks the the metal so that when the 1/2" plywood was nailed to the blocking, the wall thickness would be exactly 2 1/4". Once the window clamping frames were installed,  I had to see how easily the windows installed, and how they looked against the cherry plywood. I love how the clamp rings pull the windows tight to the metal, and I love how well the radius looks. I also very happy  how fast the clamp ring is to work with. In terms of long term maintenance, the clamp ring should be more user friendly vs drilling 20 holes per window in the metal.  Once the windows are bedded in with the recommended sealant, I have zero concerns about these leaking. For the re fit of my previous boat,  I used the same windows ( Motion Windows Inc.)  and they gave me nothing but trouble free service. Im happy to see the window  manufacturer has changed some things around and for sure improved on their design and manufacturing process.

I used Cherry plywood to build the frames, so if I want to stop at this layer of finish work, the clamp ring/frame joint will look good. I think I might add another piece to the finish work regarding window trim, so the cherry might get buried. Either way, I have it beat now. As soon as I finish the wheel house frames,  Ill go ahead and put three coats of Urethane on the frames, and then theyll be ready for the final install of the windows once we get to the launch site. Theres three or four days worth of work ( in the warm shop ) prepping the openings to accept the windows, but once  I have it completed, it should only take two of us a couple of hours to get all the windows  installed once I land the super structure to the hull. Its important to me to be able to quickly have the boat  weather tight once she leaves the barn.

Temperatures are going to drop in to the teens tonight, so I have the wood boiler running  hard and the radiant floor heat has the shop floor up to about 90 degrees. The rest of the building is about 65 degrees and all is good in Conall-ville.

 

 

Cheers 

Read More..

Window installation

The windows for the boat came  from Motion Windows, and after over year in the barn they are finally installed. Theres a link to Motion on this page to the right.

All the windows in the salon are of the same size; tinted, and sliders. The wheel house has two fixed windows, and two top hinged windows on the forward wall. Also in the wheel house, there are two sliders and a fixed to starboard, and one slider, the passage door, and a fixed window to port. The windows on the front of the wheel house are un-tinted, 1/2" tempered. The only tinted windows in the wheel house are the two small fixed  units aft.

All the windows are held in place using a clamp ring. The window has a flange on it that gets a bead of sealant applied, and lands on the outside of the boat. The clamp ring flanges against the interior trim, and is held in place with 15 or so screws that thread in to a groove in the window. The screws pull everything tight, and the sealant makes a water tight seal. The boat side of the window flange has six or 8 dados extruded in to it, so that a gasket is made by the sealant, which prevents metal on metal contact along with a water tight seal. The trim ring method is the best way in  my opinion to install windows like this as no drilling or damage to the hull sheathing happens. It is also an extremely fast install, and minor alignment is possible. The fast installation was due to me spending three days while the super structure was in the barn fitting the interior trim piece for each window and making sure all the openings were dead nut. I"m pretty sure I blogged about the interior trim fit up so if anyone cares, theres more detail in that blog post. Sika-Flex UV resistant marine sealant was used and recommended by the window manufacturer.

After the first window went in, we had to make a decision on how to deal with the squeeze out of the black sealant. I started to tool the joint, and attempt to wipe things clean, but I soon found things getting out of hand. The sealant was on my hands, and clothes along with getting on the powder coated window, and finding its way to the boat quite a distance away from the window. The stuff seemed to jump! So after getting that mess cleaned up, we decided it was going to be best to deal with the squeeze out once the material cured. I messed around with it a bit the other day and to my pleasant surprise, it does pull away from the paint ( with some effort ) at the paint/ window flange joint. A hard plastic tool or plastic scraper will be needed to coax the material off of the boat.

Im very happy with the quality of the windows, and how secure the installation feels. With the type of sealant we used and how much squeeze out were seeing, Im extremely confident we have a water tight seal. Some of the smaller windows with tight bends we found the groove that the trim ring screws in to had distorted a little bit. The manufacturer included a bag of the next size larger screw with my package which worked out most excellent in the larger groove, thus keeping everything nice and tight. This is the second boat Ive used Motion Windows on and I am for sure a happy customer.

Now that the window  install is complete,the next order of business is to finish painting the salon wall weld joint on the aft deck, then scuff, and paint the weld joint on the inside. The salon door and wheel house door will then

be installed.  Once this is complete, Ill bolt on some wood to the few frames that need it, then get the foam finished. Some fairing and priming on the outside weld along with the intake and exhaust louvers on the stack, and well be weather tight.

Cheers 

Read More..

Window frames are ready for windows

The window frames are finished and another job has  made it off of  my list.

Once I had all the Cherry window frames installed, I wanted to make sure all the window trim rings fit as they should. Im glad I did this, because I had to trim some of the frames to allow the trim ring to fit with the 1/8" clearance the manufacturer recommends. The window frames, like most other things, took up a lot more time than I would have estimated. I was also surprised that building the frames consumed a sheet and a half of Cherry veneer plywood. Only one frame made it in to the wood stove, so there was really no waste. The last time I bought Cherry veneer plywood was when I was building the cabins below decks two winters ago. I guess technology has allowed the plywood manufacturers to alter the veneer as this veneer is extremely thin. I dont even want to guess what fraction of an inch is, but one has to be very careful as sanding through it is not to hard to do. Because I was joining frames together using biscuits, it was critical that the frame faces were perfectly flush so that a light sanding with 220 grit would bring the two surfaces perfectly fair.

 

My system of using blocks, while a pain to install, looks like its going to work out good. If I were to do it over again, I would probably glue the blocks to the hull sheathing vs bolting them in place as I did. I had the chance to glue some blocks in place, and also the chance to remove some glued in place blocks. The glued in place blocks I did remove, split away in the wood instead of the glue failing at the hull sheathing. Id have no problem in the future of relying on a glue to metal joint in this application. Before gluing a block to the hull sheathing, I would recommend one scuffs the primer to give the glue something to grab. The biggest reason I wanted to use blocking was have a situation where I have no metal at all not covered with foam insulation. I have two small areas inside the super structure where the foam broke away from the flange due to my aggressive foam trimming, but that will easily be repaired when I foam the hull to super structure joint this spring. The only other place I have bare metal not foamed is the thickness of the hull skin at the window and door rough opening. Once the window is installed, it will be no bid deal at all to go back with a can of foam and seal this joint.

 The foam guy did a pretty good job overall, but the thickness of the foam was inconsistent at the window opening. While installing the windows, Ill have a roll of fiberglass insulation on hand so we can fill this gap. The metal is not exposed, but as you can see from the picture, the thickness varies. I want the maximum amount of insulation for a comfortable boat as much as I want to eliminate any chance of condensation.

I was going to temporally install the windows to see how they looked, but I soon realized that the more I handled them and had them out of the crate, the more they could get damaged. I had toyed with the idea of permanently installing the windows while the super structure is in the barn, but my gut tells me the move to the launch site and the work to land the super structure could jeopardize the windows.

The next project is building the cabinets for the galley. Im well into the cabinet job and am happy with the size and layout of the galley.

 

 

 

Cheers

Read More..