You know, sometimes I do things in totally the wrong order. And then, at other times, I do things in the wrong order but it doesn’t matter because I used the wrong materials and it all has to be done over again anyway. Well, that’s the story of glazing the butterfly hatch windows.

We have three hatches, each with two butterfly “wings” that open up to give us fresh air and they also wonderfully light the interior. The glass in these six windows is about 12″ x 24″. I say “About” because each one is slightly different from the next. When we got Mahdee, the glazing was frosted (sun damaged) plastic. We decided to install tempered safety glass as it is 10x stronger than just regular glass. We’d been advised to install 8 mil hurricane film on the inside of the glazing as that stuff is the same as the laminate used on laminated glass and would increase the strength even more and make it such that the tempered glass if it broke would all stay together rather than fly everywhere.

Well…where should I start with the “oops” moments? Let’s just say that David was pushing me to install the glass because he was tired of plastic over those hatches during rain storms… and I hadn’t yet found a supplier (in California) of the hurricane film. So, since I knew we wanted a very flexible glazing material, I decided to use the silicon-modified polyurethane made by Tremco that we’d used to bed many things on deck. I’d forgotten that this material should be painted to prevent UV degradation.

While we were still in the boatyard, I installed the glass assuming I could glue on the film (inside) later and I used the Tremco which ended up being the wrong glazing material. Last fall we noticed that the glass wasn’t stuck to the Tremco anymore. I called the supplier who explained to me that the product I used was great for lots of things, but glass in sunlight was its enemy since the layer of Tremco closest to the glass would have plenty of UV light to breakdown the glazing material. Alas, I’d have to reglaze. Simultaneous to learning about my use of the wrong glazing material, I located a supplier of the hurricane film (Concord) and learned that it should be installed on the glass all the way to the edge of the glass…else it would require a hefty 1/4″x1/4″ bead of high strength silicon between the film and the window framing–ugh.

So, I had two reasons to re-glaze the butterfly hatches–first because they actually leak a little after the sunshine got to the glazing for a year and second because I didn’t feel like putting on additional interior glazing for the film.

Now that I’ve explained myself, guess what? I started removing the Tremco from the butterfly hatches Tuesday. Tough stuff. While it peeled away from the glass without much effort, it is definitely stuck to the teak frames. After a few hours of misery with the razors and chisels, I did two of the six windows and really improved my removal techniques. Today, I’m planning on doing the other four.

This glazing thing clearly isn’t soaring with my strengths. I actually had to call the Concord (window film) company to have them explain to me how to find the protective film on the glue side of the 8 ml thick hurricane film. The fellow laughed and said it was a common problem and I should just “do what the professionals do: bite the edge and move it with your teeth” I was sure there was no protective film or glue side as I had literally started pulling apart the two layers of the hurricane film! But, I did what he said and a miracle occurred–I found the film.

After “unglazing” is done today, I’ll be installing the film and then be re-glazing with a straight silicon material (that cannot be painted). It doesn’t look like it will rain or we’ll have fog for the next 48 hours, so, keeping my hopes up…I’m off for my day’s adventure of re-setting window glass.