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At the moment, we just have a piece of Perspex in our hatch, whereby we can open the hatch doors even on chilly days, having the Perspex in place so it stays warm inside!

The Perspex is a bit scratched now though and looks a bit shoddy - it doesn't do the new woodwork that Rob did for us any justice either! Rob re-fitted our hatch doors HERE



Basically, the perspex goes over the whole frame of the hatch as in the picture above (the pic is to show you the frame, not the Perspex as when I took that picture, I'd not put the hardware back on to keep the Perspex in place!

Anyway, my plan now is to replace the Perspex with a sheet of glass - approximately 62 x 55cm as the Perspex can scratch easily, even when cleaning it with a bit of window cleaner and kitchen roll!

I am then going to get some beveled glass decorations which you can then 'bond' to the glass to give a decorative effect. Something like this perhaps:



In one of my very first blog posts, I had mentioned how our new front doors were going to have the beveled glass decorations, but there wasn't time in the end and the boat builders didn't have the right equipment to apply the bevels using the special curing lights and bonding adhesives. However, I have found a company where I can buy the tools to do the job myself, so will have a go on the hatch glass to make a nice decorative, unique piece.

Here's a bit of a better look at how the bevels look:



You bond them to you your glass pane and then simply apply some leading to where the join of the bevel meets your pane of glass - don't they look pretty!?

Anyway, it will give a piece of glass in the hatch a real wow factor and will be great for summer! It will also be a lot cheaper than having a stained glass piece commissioned!

My only problem now, is that obviously glass is a lot more heavier and more fragile(!) than Perspex! This is how the Perspex is held in place at the moment:



Here are the fittings, at the top:



At the bottom:



The bottom fittings are fine I think, as the glass will just sit on those, but I need a solution for securing the glass at the top as the fittings used at the moment just swing over the top of the Perspex to keep it in place, but can move about quite easily. I wouldn't want a piece of glass at that size falling out!

Also to note, the glass won't have a wood frame all the way around, only some corner protectors ( so the corners don't get bashed and chipped when taking it in and out)

Any ideas, readers??




Comments

  1. Hi Lewis
    If you are convinced glass is the way to go for the side screen then make sure you instruct the supplier to send it away for toughening. It will make it far more resilient to chipping / cracking and if the worst does happen it will be far safer than having huge razor shards flying around.
    Personally I would use a good cast acrylic which is quite scratch resistant and is cheap enough to be treated as a consumable
    Cheers
    Roger

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks roger, we were thinking laminated glass? Do you think that would be better?

    The acrylic is what we have now but it's a bit boring just having a plain piece in so that's why I wanted to go for glass so I could add bevels and a lead design, and not only that but the acrylic scratches so easily too!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Laminated chips and cracks easily unless in a frame which you don't want, its also heavier too at 6.4 mm thick. If it really has to be glass it needs to be toughened.
    There is no reason you can't do what you want to do on Cast Acrylic. We have recently double glazed all our windows with it, I'm expecting a good few winter seasons from them.

    ReplyDelete

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