March 18, 2025

Miss Helen 7

Tuesday

Checking the boat first thing in the morning to see how the sealant was curing and whether I could remove the braces, I was mightily disturbed to discover a pair of cracks in the center of the glass.  These cracks had appeared on their own sometime overnight, and I was baffled by it.  Since the lens and trim installation had gone so well overall, and the end result yesterday had so obviously not included any glass cracking, this was not really the start of the day I’d been hoping for.

All I could think was that there must have been some pre-existing flaw in the edge of the glass that, at some point after installation, had caused the cracks to grow.  This was laminated glass, and anyone with a windshield in their car has probably seen a tiny chip grow into an inspection-failing crack in mere seconds some winter’s morning when the defroster was on, or any other circumstance.  Perhaps this is what happened here; I truly did not know.

And frankly, it didn’t really matter right now.  I allowed myself a few moments of self-pity.

What mattered was that I’d have to start over and remove everything I’d just installed so I could get the glass replaced.  I had the small benefit of the knowledge that the sealant had had little time to cure, and therefore removal right now would be about as easy as it could possibly be, so I got right to it.  To begin, I removed the bracing from inside and installed the two short pieces of interior trim, at the vertical ends, to give something for the window to lean against if it wanted to move during trim removal outside.  I needed the glass still intact so it could be a pattern for the new lens.

Here’s a few more photos of the cracks for posterity, and with a clearer view with the bracing removed.

Next, I removed all the screws from the exterior trim, then removed the trim carefully.  While the sealant might not have been fully cured, it was still plenty stuck, and it was a challenge to remove the poor old trim pieces without damage.  The bottom piece of trim, which had had some damage previously (and been repaired after the last removal) did not survive this second removal in as many weeks, unfortunately, but I was hardly surprised given its condition anyway.  Now I planned to make new trim pieces for the replacement installation.

With the trim off and the glass out, I scraped away the bulk of the remaining sealant, and sanded and solvent-washed the area clean again.  Any final remnants of “old” sealant could be removed a little later, but I got it 95% of the way there.  Then, I left to take the old glass to a glass shop where I could get it replaced.

Total time billed on this job today: No time billed, but I spent 2 hours overall.