Having assembled a complete window yesterday, it became apparent that the frame was approximately 5mm too wide between the side channels for the droplight. The cause of this was my negkecting to establish all the critical dimensions from the outset and using an extracted frame as a reference. The problem was relatively easily fixed by cutting the top horizontal roughly in the middle, drawing it together with a ratchet strap and rewelding. So small was the error that caused this that the angles at the top corner appear unchanged as a result! The top seal remains to be modified and refitted. The rest of the afternoon was spent recovering fittings from the remaining original frames, one left to do.
Monthly Archives: December 2019
13/12/2019
Back on track now after discovering (by breaking it) that the side window glass is ordinary plate. All replacement glass will be toughened but I can’t afford to wait to replace it all so I shall use what I have for now. Yesterday was spent preparing an unbroken lower with the top bar from tbe first effort. This and the droplight were installed in the side bars today and held in place with lightweight ratchet straps whilst the silicone glazing compound sets.
Refurbishment of a second set of sidebars filled up the rest of the day, including a repair to the aluminium casting where a rivet had come loose, drilled through and replaced with a 6BA countersunk screw and a nut recessed and staked to the brass channel. An invisible but necessary repair. All good. New chrome vinyl and felt applied to one bar. I need to refine the felt fitting process further as it currently produces too much excess. Removing the protective paper only from the bottom section first seems like the way to proceed.
Glazing assembled ready for fitting in the frame.
4/12/2019
The last couple of weeks have all been about building window frames, spraying them in etch primer and getting parts prepared for assembling the first replacement window.
Five frames have been constructed so far. Three are in etch primer awaiting attention to the various mountings, one is still in bare metal whilst the first one is painted and today had the delrin fitted to the bottom horizontal ready for mounting the fixed light. The previous days of this week have been spent on chrome vinyl wrapping the fixed centre bar and the visible parts of the inner frame.
New rubber was obtained for the top seal that the droplight closes against and 16mm aluminium channel was cut down to 2.5mm depth to locate this in the top of the window frame. I cut enough pieces of this today to do the whole bus after a trial fit in the first window frame.
Today the fixed glass had the centre bar fitted using black glazing silicone to cement it into the channel in the bar, using pvc tape wrapped around the edges of the glass to give it a bit more thickness to centre it in the channel. I will leave this a couple of days now to fully cure so I can reassemble the whole window ready for refitting in the bus.