Poolio's sailing and travel blog.

My recent boat work has been focused on repairing deck leaks since it will be easier to do the interior and hull work that is needed if the interior of the boat stays dry when it rains.  For the last month I’ve been away from the boatyard but I wanted to share a little about the recent window resealing project before I get back to Bock to start on new projects.

The cabin windows on my Pearson 28-1 were the largest remaining source of top-side leaks and they were looking dull with their oxidized aluminum frames and crumbled seals.

Finding the proper seals for the windows was a challenge since I wasn’t able to find the seals that go in between the glass and frame at any local sources.  Fortunately other Peason 28 owners on the Yahoo hosted P28 Forum pointed me in the right direction and  I ended up finding the proper glass-to-frame and frame-to-cabin seals at GordonGlassUsa.com.

The parts and prices for the seals that I ordered are:

This provides you with extra but I couldn’t find a way to order smaller quantities.  If you are planning to take this project on you may also want to order some grey butyl putty for sealing the frame seams as you reassemble the frames.  These seals are also common to a number of boats out there.  I know that other Pearsons used the same frames on some boats and I think other manufacturers like Catalina did to some extent as well.

Removing the windows is pretty straightforward as was disassembly and cleanup of the frames.  It did take a lot of scraping and acetone to get the old adhesive residue off of the frames but that was the worst of it.

In order to clean the exterior surface of the frames up and to polish them I started by wet-sanding with 360 grit sandpaper.  A small block helped get into the few contours of the frame.  After the 360 I wet-sanded again with 1500 grit though this didn’t require as much sanding time.  After the 1500 grit I went over the frames with aluminum polish and was really pleased with the final appearance of the aluminum.  The visual difference made by cleanup and polish on these 35+ year old frames was huge.  I’m sure different grits and approaches will work, but I found that something more aggressive than polish, or even 1500 grit was needed if I was going to get the frames cleaned up in a reasonable amount of time.

After all of the prep and cleanup all that was left was reassembly and installation.  I thought a bit of Windex and a little elbow grease would pop the window assemblies back together easily.  After more than an hour on the first attempt at reassembly I had to step away for a little while.  I eventually got the hang of reassembling the windows and the second window went together in a few minutes.  I’m not sure what I started doing differently and can’t share any assembly secrets here beyond use lots of Windex and don’t hesitate to take a break if you start getting frustrated with it.

When reinstalling the windows in the boat it helped to spray both the cabin surface and foam seal on the underside of the window frame with Windex for positioning.  The foam seal that goes in between the windows and the cabin is adhesive on both sides so initial positioning of the window would damage the seals without plenty of Windex.  Another helpful tip is to use an electric screwdriver for all of the little screws.  I used my drill and set the clutch to a low or weak setting to reduce the chance of stripping the screws.  I started them all by hand but finished things up with the drill.