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New Curtains and Windows

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David Jupp:
Maybe try a little silicone grease on assembly to keep the fluids away from the drilled holes.

awemawson:
The replacement 4 mm  Polycarbonate windows arrived yesterday - I'd ordered them cut to size. So I started removing the old ones. With the windows removed  I was able to get at swarf that previously had been inaccessible.

It was apparent that last time some of the holes were marginally too tight a tolerance with the screw thread binding on the polycarbonate - this probably contributed to the cracking.

I used the old windows as a drilling jig to locate the new holes - some were too broken so the new polycarbonate had to be temporarily installed using what holes that I could locate,  then drilling through the holes in the frame of the machine located the rest.

The 'plan' was to enlarge the 6 mm holes thus produced, to 10 mm with a step drill, insert a 6 MM i/d 8 mm o/d nylon bush into the 10 mm hole, and tighten the bolts onto the shoulder of the bush allowing just a small bit of 'float' for the window by means of the 8 mm / 10 mm of the bush and hole. The bush projection 'shoulder' is bang on 4 mm and the sheets measure 3.95 mm.

I'd hoped to re-use the original 12 mm bolts but they proved just too short now the bush was there, for the shakeproof nuts plastic insert to engage, so I suspended operations until an order for some 16 mm ones arrived this morning.

All went well, and the bolts were tightened down to 'no play' then backed off a 1/4 turn. So hopefully there are no great stress risers in the windows and they may just last a bit longer  :scratch:

So - old windows - cracks all over the place - chuck them out ? No way ! Trim them down using the circular saw and release the 'good bit' from the middle to add to the pile of 'may come in useful' bits  :ddb:

howsitwork?:
Nice work Andrew.

try sealing the holes with silicon maybe as that’s pretty shock brook and , if there’s been coolant on the frame probably”y won’t stick reliably to the frame but will flex and fill gaps.

I had been told coolant makes polycarbonate fragile by many grizzled engineers of my aquaintance. U see silicon to glue roof poly panels in the green house after gales blew out the glass for the third time,
. So far maybe a little cloudy but working well and have dropped a large blob of cement ont9 it from about 8 feet up with no damage so pleased after 8 years.🙂

Ian

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