Last summer, I ripped off the shrink plastic storm windows I had put on Drift Away to get through the winter in Stamford, Connecticut. Sadly, yesterday I put them back on. We plan on being in Annapolis until after Christmas, and it can get cold here. I got up early this morning and it was 22 degrees, and within a half hour it had dropped to 14 degrees. Condensation was running down the windows in rivers.
Like most, if not all other boats, Drift Away has single pane windows. Why double pane aren't installed on boats, I don't know. I bought three boxes of that plastic sheeting stuff, the kind where you put the double sided tape around the window, stick on the plastic, trim it, and then take a blow dryer to it to shrink it and remove all the wrinkles. The stuff works great, except I didn't use a blow dryer. I used a hot air paint removing gun.
The directions on the box said to set the blow dryer on its highest setting. The hot air gun has settings of 200, 500, 800, and 1000 degrees. I set it on 500 degrees.
Crap. See the hole? And I had bought just enough plastic to do the 18 windows I needed to do. Well, it's a two mile round trip walk to the hardware store, and blinds cover the windows anyway....
so I put double sided tape around the hole and put a piece of plastic over it. It ain't pretty, but it works.
And yes, I turned the heat gun down to 200 degrees. Any yes, I melted holes in the plastic three more times. Then Pam came home and asked me why I didn't use her blow dryer. I didn't have an answer for that. I'm a guy.
Like most, if not all other boats, Drift Away has single pane windows. Why double pane aren't installed on boats, I don't know. I bought three boxes of that plastic sheeting stuff, the kind where you put the double sided tape around the window, stick on the plastic, trim it, and then take a blow dryer to it to shrink it and remove all the wrinkles. The stuff works great, except I didn't use a blow dryer. I used a hot air paint removing gun.
The directions on the box said to set the blow dryer on its highest setting. The hot air gun has settings of 200, 500, 800, and 1000 degrees. I set it on 500 degrees.
Crap. See the hole? And I had bought just enough plastic to do the 18 windows I needed to do. Well, it's a two mile round trip walk to the hardware store, and blinds cover the windows anyway....
so I put double sided tape around the hole and put a piece of plastic over it. It ain't pretty, but it works.
And yes, I turned the heat gun down to 200 degrees. Any yes, I melted holes in the plastic three more times. Then Pam came home and asked me why I didn't use her blow dryer. I didn't have an answer for that. I'm a guy.
Hi Dave,
ReplyDeleteWe just put a bunch of that Saran Wrap on our windows here in Grafton. Didn't melt any holes but did some cursin' when the double-faced tape wouldn't stick to a cold metal frame.
Bob
Great photos and commentary on Annapolis Dave. We haven't been there in some time but it's one of our favorite places to go, especially on the water.
ReplyDeleteYour blog is a job, glad you're doing it for us.
BRRRRRRRR,,,,how do you prevent the cold moisture from doing damage on the teak?
ReplyDelete@ Summer Wind- we already have a lot of damage to the paneling and teak on our boat, so a little more doesn't matter. Part of our journey south will be to figure out how to repair the water damage to the interior of Drift Away.
ReplyDelete@ Bob, yeah, this stuff isn't the best. I had a lot of problems with the tape not sticking too.
@ Tom, thanks for the compliments.
Let us know what you discover about how to repair the teak. We're thinking about painting the hardwood teak outside white ( not much teak mostly it's the door frames). We've seen many Krogens doing this, not sure if we're inviting more work painting.
ReplyDelete