Can I make my own windows??

I've seen tint film on acrylic, but the film always seems to bubble and it crazes anyway. Then you're left with something that looks like a bad high-school tuner version of an '88 Chevy.

The structure around a window should be reinforced so that it will not deflect under load enough to compromise the window. The original builder should have done this.

Your frames need to be designed to handle the wind and wave impact loads on the window, and be leak-proof, with enough room for movement that flexing of the deck doesn't translate to gaps in the window frame. This is harder than it sounds. The guys who do massive glass curtain-wall installations on office towers have in many cases given up on perfect rigidity and are now using flexible silicone gaskets, seals and tie-ins to allow for movement without cracks.

The window itself needs to withstand wind (easy) and wave impact (harder) loads. The calculation is easy- a uniformly loaded flat plate, simply supported around the perimeter. The hard part is figuring out a reasonable load and safety factor- how much do you want the window to withstand before it breaks?

 

Marsh,
You are right, if you are doing serious cruising. My marina mate for a year and a half was rebuilding a 30 foot sailboat to single hand back to New Zealand. He used 1/2 inch glass. I am a fare weather week ender, so 1/4 inch plexy was just fine for me.

 

Just what I thought ......

 

You've got your resins mixed up a bit -

Acrylic extruded sheet = brand names are Plexiglas, Lucite, Acrilite, and others

Polycarbonate sheet = brand names are Lexan, Tuffak, others

Polycarbonate does not crack like acrylic. Polycarbonate is used for bullet proof windows. If you try to drill a hole in acrylic using a standard drill bit, you run a high risk of cracking it. If you drill into polycarbonate, the plastic sort of gums up, but you can drill using a standard bit without cracking. Same goes for sawing.

You won't confuse these when you get out your wallet - polycarbonate is much more expensive.

 

Phil Bolger claims that if a bullet passes through lexan , the bullet hole seals itself.

 

I've seen some bullets buried in lexan - to stop a large hi velocity round, it does take some thick (1/2-1") lexan.

 

Small comfort if you're standing on the other side of the Lexan!

 

You were talking about bolts that the name was forgotten, but also talked about your wife. It then surprises me that the name of the bolt was forgotten: Sex bolts... (no joking here)

When I should make a choice, I would prefer tempered glass over any plastic window. Although the scratch-resistant polycarbonate does a pretty decent job. (it also comes near or even over the price of tempered glass...) A brand name is Lexan, and their scratch-proof stuff is called "Margard Lexan". Another brand name not mentioned before is Xenoy, made by GE.

Hope this helps...

 

Danny,

Concerning your question about 3/16 glass, here's an interesting video. I would think that 1/4" would be preferable and not all that expensive for your project. Most of the quotes I have got for my boat are less than $8/sqft for clear and less than $9 for grey. I am biased toward glass over acrylic or plycarbonate because a clear view of the world is very important to me. From what I understand even Lexan with Margard will cloud sooner or later (mostly sooner) and then you have to do it all over again and as pointed out above, it is expensive. Acrylic is good but the 1/2" acrylic windows on my boat were crazed to the point it was hard to see through them after only 8 years. I will be using 1/4" tempered glass for the new windows, most of which are about 2' x 2'.

Best of luck,
Mike

 

Ooops. Here's the video
http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&rlz=1T4HPIC_en___US257&resnum=0&q=strength%20of%20tempered%20glass&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv#hl=en&emb=0&q=tempered%20glass%20strength

 

Here's a couple more:

http://www.wilsonglass.com/StrengthTWO.htm

http://video.google.com/videosearch?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4HPIC_en___US257&q=how%20strong%20is%20tempered%20glass&um=1&sa=N&tab=wv#

 

DAMN! I'm impressed! I never knew that glass was so tough, or so flexible. I found another one on the google site - a guy jumping on a standard US patio door - 3 ft. by 7 ft glass panels - double pane - and he could jump and break the first layer, but couldn't break the second layer, even with a steel crow bar.

I guess I'd put glass in too - unless you get shot at sometimes, then I'd definitely go with the lexan.