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By 2007 it was the turn of the remaining windows for some attention. There were areas on most windows where the rubber was brittle and crumbling, and leaving black smears.
We decided that we would have the remaining windows reglazed with new rubber extrusions as this would be a much cheaper solution than aluminium framed windows and the process would be much simpler. We eventually settled on a company based in Reading to do the work. They would source the extrusion and would come to our marina and replace all the rubbers in one day.
The quote for labour was just £500 with an estimate for the rubber glazing extrusion subject to comfirmation from their supplier. Then we hit a snag!
We wanted to replace the exsiting rubber extrusion with one having the same cross section width (30mm) so that the old paint under the rubber remained hidden and there would be no tide mark round each window. But because the rubber extrusion was around twenty years old the original tooling was lost, Stevens had no supply of the rubber extrusion and commercially available extrusions off the shelf were all smaller in width and would reveal the old paint. Our Reading company searched Europe for a rubber extrusion supplier with a product of the right size, to no avail. And so we were left with some difficult choices:
1 Do
nothing - very cheap
but not a realistic option in the long term.
2 Fit the industry standard - economical but would leave an unsightly old paint line round each window - not in keeping with our standards!
3 Go to aluminium frames - very costly and complicated
4 Have some rubber extrusion of the right size custom made - not as expensive as ally frames but not cheap either!
2 Fit the industry standard - economical but would leave an unsightly old paint line round each window - not in keeping with our standards!
3 Go to aluminium frames - very costly and complicated
4 Have some rubber extrusion of the right size custom made - not as expensive as ally frames but not cheap either!
We decided to investigate option 4 and found that we would have to buy a minimum of 120m (we needed about 38m!) and would have to pay 50%of the cost of the special tool. We reluctantly agreed!
The next step was to obtain a sample of the existing rubber which involved removing a window and sealing the aperture against the elements, and cutting a piece off the old extrusion. This piece was used by the manufacturer to make the tool. Eventually about ten weeks later the 120m of black EPDM rubber extrusion were delivered and a few days after that our boys from Reading turned up at Abingdon to do the job.
This was my first chance to look at the extrusion. I was impressed that the extruder had followed the original pattern down to the smallest detail of the internal ribbing on the sealing faces. These ribs aid sealing to the glass and superstructure and set our rubber extrusion apart from those without this feature, as a high quality extrusion.
The actual reglazing was quite uneventful. The job was finished by mid afternoon! The windows looked so much better that we wished we had done this years ago when we had had Starry Night repainted!
Window glazing rubber showing silver retaining filler strip now replaced with black.
Fitting the new extusion
Fitting the glass - its worrying how hard you have to hit it to get it to fit!
Finishing touches!
The end result - these windows are curved.
It's amazing how you can bend the glass to fit
the cabin profile. Best left to an expert?