New port lights part 2 of ????

Finally got a day that it wasn't raining cats and dogs and was able to test the installation of the new port light. Well it was very obvious, real quick that the new window leaked much worst then the old window! This sucks!

So I took the port light off. Man that butyl tape is sticky and stretchy! It took a good amount of work to get the plexiglass off the hull. Until I got to the top part. Obviously the port light was not even touching the hull!

This plastic 1/4 inch plexiglass is not as flexible as I thought! So the only way that I can see to fix this problem is bend the plexiglass so that it can touch the hull. Now I have to clean everything up and off to Google how to bend plexiglass.

Cleaning that butyl tape off was not an easy task. It was just slowly pulling and scraping with a plastic putty knife. After that taking some of the butyl tape and touching it to what was left on the plexiglass and it was able to pick up some of what was left behind. Then cleaning up the remaining stragglers with mineral spirits. Then cleaning the plexiglass really well.

So after some reading and watching YouTube I see several people agreeing on using a heat gut to heat up the plastic. As usual the YouTube videos make it look easy, but the forums and what I read says it is tricky. So off to get a heat gun to add to all my stuff!

Cut off a small chunk from the extra plexiglass I have and went for it. Found that it was pretty easy to get the plexiglass to blister and bubble under the heat gun. I really have to keep it just the right distance away and keep it moving just right. Move it to fast and the plexiglass does not heat up and get soft. To close or to slow and it bubbles!

So I put down a 2X4 on my little work table and lined up the spot where I wanted to bend to start. Then put a 1X4 on top of the plexiglass and clamped it all down to the table. Fired up the heat gun. Starting at one end of the port light I carefully worked on heating up both sides. Making sure to take my time and keep that gun moving.

Of coarse today was the day the weather decided to jump from 60 degrees to 80! So trying very hard to be patient and just carefully heat up a small section. I used a small piece of wood to push down on the hot plexiglass. It takes a lot of heat to get this stuff to get soft and bend. Then moved down a little bit. Heating it up carefully, keep the gun moving. Finally was able to get a little bit of bend. Then move down a few more inches, rinse and repeat.

So it took me a good long time to work my way down a few inches at a time. I had a hard time getting a good picture of the slight bend I finally got. After slow and carefully heating and pressing down on the plexiglass.

With having a hard time getting the top part to connect with the hull I decided to put two layers of butyl tape on the top part of the port light. Also carefully put the butyl tape down on the edge. Carefully cutting angles to go around all the corners. With having a hard time getting the top part to connect with the hull I decided to put two layers of butyl tape on the top part of the port light.

Carefully put it in place lining up all the holes in the port light with the hull. Unfortunately the bottom of the port light touched the hull before it should have. Man that butyl tape grabbed hold and wouldn't let go. So you want to have some help and line everything up very carefully.

One thing I have not mentioned yet is that several of the screws that go into the balsa wood core would just spin and not tighten down. So I got the largest screws I could. I have to have the holes larger then the screws to allow for expansion. Those screws would not work either!

So I still don’t have this one issue fixed yet. So got to keep looking and trying to figure out what I can do to get this done. Hopefully I will find a solution soon!