Sexy Windows ~

Having recently discussed the cabin top paint project in my last post, I felt it fitting to share a little more on the lovely design aspect of the cabin top. This particular segment is on the big windows that are so recognizably Downeaster. Lets call them the "sexy" windows...


For this project I simply, removed the big windows, cleaned them with buffing compound, cleaned off old caulking, painted the cabin top, built an inner window framing, and re-installed the windows.  Easy as 1. 2. 3... right ?

Heres how it all came together, or should I say,  came apart.

Port side forward cabin window.

Port side forward cabin window removed to show inner window sill.

Another view of port side looking aft.

And now a view from inside.   Here you can see just how thin the inner window sill is. About 1/4 inch.  I have seen other Downeasters that do not have this recessed lip or window sill to receive the window. In that instance the window seems to be caulked directly to the outside cabin top.

One of the main features of "sexy" windows is their lack of fasteners. They are simply held in place by a super thick bead of caulking.  If fasteners are used during installation, they are simply removed and the holes are filled with caulking.  This is the method I used to install my windows. However, one thing still plagued at the planning for this project...  my concern with the thin fiberglass window sill being to thin.

This begins the inner cabin top framing project.

Another aspect of this inner framework was to have a place to mount the new interior siding. The previous interior was constructed of a few thin strips of wood and some foam glued to the cabin ceiling walls, followed by some vinyl material stapled to that.  It looked fine, but had stains and rust spots where fittings had leaked through the deck. All interior headliner and ceiling liner were removed to properly seal up leaks in the deck.

 Here you can see the foam and wood which was glued and taped in place. The vinyl is the material hanging down with the stained up corner.  Someone had spent alot of time or money having this headliner built, but forgot to seal up the deck leaks first... sadly, I had to rip it all out!

Here is a view of the cabin top ceilings before removing the headliner. It really did look decent and I was pretty gutted to have to remove it all. I saved all materials of this headliner and siding not knowing if I would use it again or not.

After extensive research I decided to abandon the old stuff and replace it with new teak plywood. I love the warm look and feel of wood inside the boat and have decided to use it as much as possible to restore the interior.  I found a wonderful distributer of these fine materials locater in south florida called  World Panel . They were very helpful in selecting the product I needed and after shelling out a few $$$ I had a stack of beautiful teak ply sitting at my door. I will resume this topic in another post on the new teal interior.

I began the cabin top inner framing project in the galley and worked my way around the inside of the boat.

 Galley interior with wood framing pieces cut and ready to be epoxied in place.


This interior framing will actually serve two purposes. 1 being an interior structure to mount the teak siding onto. 2 an interior strengthening structure to give the cabin top more rigidity and solid feeling.

Here is the v-berth area before framing is installed.

Here are a couple shots of the framing epoxied in place.

I had to use a thinner strip of wood for the areas around the bronze portlights since they are nearly flush mounted to the cabin top ceilings. 

This is an image of the bronze portlight and the template I made to cut the holes for the teak siding.  More on this later.

This is the area near the galley and the big window holes. 

 Here you can see the inner framing or window sill framing.

This step of framing was necessary to allow a smooth transition from window to teak siding. Also giving the window frame more strength.

The big windows being prepped with masking tape and dry  fit in place.

 

Port side view of the cabin top and windows being masked.

Dow Corning 795 Silicone Building Sealant commonly used to install big panes of glass in buildings.
The screws were used to hold the windows in place while the caulking cured. The small black rubber rings were used as spacers to hold the windows off the surface about a 1/4" to allow for a thick bead of sealant.

Massive amounts of sealant laid into the window recess to build up the 1/4" bead.

I used a suction cup window holder to position the windows in place while putting in the screws.

After fitting the windows with screws the sealant was squeegeed smooth to fill all voids.

Lindita sitting dockside looking good with her big "Sexy" windows!

 All sealed up and ready for the next rain shower ~

Cabin Top Paint ~

I'm in the middle of painting the boat right now.  

Well, not actually at this moment.  What I mean is that nearly half the boat has been painted so far.  

The previous owner had the hull sides and bottom of the boat painted back in January of 2011. So the only area really needing paint is the topsides. The cabin top, cap rails and gunwales, cockpit lazarettes and nonskid decks are the areas I'm focused on now. 

Where o where to start...?


This is a shot of my broker and friend Randy Hinely on the helm as we sail across the Gulf of Mexico on delivery home to Niceville.

You can see the areas of concern in the cabin top bulkhead.  The duct tape is covering an old portlight that had been removed.  Also the engine gauges were mounted in this same bulkhead area.  It reminded me of a oversized cars dashboard... not very nautical.

Plans to change these things began immediately underway. 

 Another shot of us sailing back across the Gulf of Mexico.
Here you can see the ugly yellow plastic covering the portlight holes. It was very brittle and would crack if touched.

A shot of the starboard side deck. The weathered teak is asking for some attention as well.

After throughly cleaning and inspecting the topsides, I decided to remove the teak eyebrow trim that wraps around the cabin top. It was badly cracked in spots and needed to be stripped.

After removing the eyebrow trim rail I exposed many screw holes which needed filling and faring.

Trim screw holes counterbored and ready for epoxy filling.

At this point it was apparent that the teak hand rails would need to be removed as well.  Unfortunately they were leaking into the cabin top a little, and need to be re-bedded after painting.

  The deck looks super clean with everything removed.  Now time to remove those big windows.

Quite a mess we've got here. The windows were leaking pretty bad. You can see the amount of crud that collected inside the window frame.




Another main area of concern was the cabin top bulkheads in the cockpit. I still had those old holes from the gauges and the old portlight. 

My idea was to fill the holes with wood and fiberglass them over. 

This is a view from inside the cabin looking aft at the bulkhead. You can see the wood plugs glassed in place.  I spent much more time glassing the exterior surface of this bulkhead to get it smooth and fare. Somehow I dont seem to have many pictures of that step.

This is where the eyebrow trim rail ended near the cockpit.  The big main cabin windows are held in with blue masking tape.

Next I removed the main hatch covering the companion way.

Its built of teak and very strong, however it had leaks coming through the seams.


Companion way hatch completely removed and ready to repair.

All of this area will need to be painted with the cabin top.

There was an enormous amount of prep work that went into painting just the cabin top section of this boat. Many hours spent filling and faring, sanding and sanding. then filling and faring some more, sanding, sanding, etc, etc....

I did the majority of this section by myself.  I could have spent another season trying to get everything prepped out perfectly, luckily I have Dennis Mayhew to remind me of one important thing... Its a boat, not a church. Just paint it.

Thanks Dennis for helping me keep things fairly simple.

 Primer ~ Port side

Primer ~ Starboard side

Primer ~ Starboard side looking aft

Paint~ Starboard side

Looking good during the Single handers race ~ October 2012 ~ BBSC 

New cabin top paint shining in the sunset ~


Once again, its feels good to look back at another project completed. I'm always amazed at how great this boat looks after finishing projects like this. She is a great boat with classic lines, and steps like this really help to show that about her. 

I've toyed with the idea of leaving off the handrails to keep that clean look on deck, however she wont be a dock queen forever. 

"You're gonna need those handrails one day when those Abaco seas come crashing on deck!" ~ Dennis Mayhew

Original Bronze Portlights ~

Like many other projects on this boat the previous owner had already started this one.... fortunately he hadn't gotten very far with it. 

When I first bought the boat it had some sort of plastic covering the portlight holes, looked to be maybe cheap shower panel or some other home depot type material. Certainly not marine grade! I'm not sure how long it was there before I found the boat, and the first time it touched it, it cracked and broke. Obviously ultra violet rays had been eating away at it for some time. Luckily it lasted through our trip home before I scraped it off for good.

The original bronze portlights were stowed below in a cardboard box when I found the boat. Sweet! I thought...   they have already been restored and just need to be installed.  Simple, right ?

First I wanted to paint the cabin top portion of the deck prior to installing the portlights to give them a super clean line when finished.  This was easier said than done. I ran into a few snags while prepping the cabin top for paint that delayed the portlight installation a little.  I'll get into that later.

For now I'd like to focus on the bronze portlights.

All six holes were originally cut at the factory, as far as I know. And all six holes seemed to be odd shapes. Not perfectly shaped like you would think from a factory install, however this was the seventies...

So I made rings of wood to fit around the lip or flange of the portlight to give the proper size and shape hole to install into.

 Frame rings cut from luan plywood to reshape the portlight holes.




Next I glued them into place and began reshaping the cabin top wall from the inside.

Here you can see the hole taking shape.



This is the portlight being dry fit with clamps.

Notice the wood ring between the portlight and cabin top wall.


Since the portlight spigot size is only about 7/8" and the cabin top wall thickness varied between 7/8" and 1", I basically had to flush mount them. This means there would be nothing sticking out of the cabin top side deck wall except the outer trim ring of bronze.

Here you can see the portlight being held in place by butyl bedding material.


This was my first time working with this stuff. It was difficult at first until applying a little heat, then the stuff gets real stretchy! The interesting thing is that it makes great gasket material and can flex with movement of things like a sailboat. 

Applying butyl bedding to portlight spigots and inner frames.

Time to drill some holes ~



All the original holes for the portlight hardware had been filled when I painted the cabin top. I also did some epoxy work on the interior side of the holes to seal everything up nicely.  After securing the portlights in place with butyl and clamps it was time to drill the new holes.

Close up of new bolt holes and butyl bedding material.



The next step was to simply bolt on the outer trim rings to finish off the project.  But what bolts to use?  I found some decent barrel nuts and some counter-sink bolts to fit it all together.  Wish I could sprang for the counter-sink barrel nuts, however they would have gone over budget for this project, so I settled for these.

Here you can see the new mounting hardware and the polished bronze outer trim ring.

After applying the butyl bedding compound along with the foam tape to the inside of the trim rings, they were ready to go on.

Butyl ~

All butyled up and ready to go!


This project was a loooong time coming! Super stoked to have these portlights installed! They fit great and I'm really glad that we were able to use them in the restoration. In such an extremely consuming project such as a boat of this size its important to use and reuse anything we can. Hopefully we'll get another 30+ years out of these old original bronze portlights!

Here is the final look after install.

 Polished bronze against new Awlgrip always looks great!



Here she is after the first water test with the hose on deck.

Sealed up tight ~



 Shining bright at night!!

Looking fresh during the day!

 This project brings our sweet boat so much closer to being livable. These portlights are not only a huge cosmetic upgrade, their a big step in making her a comfortable live aboard boat inside and out.  Plus we can finally keep the rain out and let the breeze in. ~