Window Fuzz/trim?

Crammed it in one screwdriver blade of a section at a time. 1 out of 4 tracks went in easy, the others were buggers. Thanks all! I'll save the other side of the boat for my next visit and bring my dremal tool.

Sky,

I Know what you mean. But in all the windows I have had to re-work, the fuzz that was so bad it was falling apart, the corrosion had already started.

Windows are the most overlooked, under maintained items on a boat.

I am in the process of a complete paint job and have all my window frames out. I have removed fuzz from one of the sliders, was a PITA! I talked to sams and he recommended cutting slots to reinstall fuzz. Anyone ever cut slots before? How wide and what area in the frame would you cut them in?. I am sand blasting and powder coating frames so I hope this will slow the corrosion down.

How did they ever get the fuzz in when the boat was build. Did they put the fuzz in before they welded the frames together??

Sliding the fuzys in was the easiest part of the job. Your corrosion must have added the difficulty. The tracks for those fussies have some open spaces near the ends. I just started them in, grabbed the edge with a pair of needlenose pliers and pulled them right in. The plastic rub strips on the bottom are another story. No one can slide those in, too much friction. You just set them on top of the track and tap them down with a thin wood block and a hammer. That is also easy once you give up on sliding them. If your tracks are corroded, they will probably be fine after sandblasting and powdercoating. I am sure your new fuzzies will slide right in.

I don't care what anyone says about this job, it's DIFFICULT!!! I've finished one out of six frames on this boat. On mine, there wasn't one fuzz track where there was an access opening on either end to slide the old out and the new in, unlike all of the drapery tracks where you have to put a set screw in place to keep the drapes from sliding back out. Each frame takes three pieces - two pieces of glass and one screen for a total of SIX perimeters of fuzz around that entire frame. This is why some folks say they've done ONE window and to hell with the rest. While I understand how folks got to that mindset, I'm trying not to fall in that category, but that said, I have ONE frame done. And the rest are not on my short list of to-do's.

Tools Required (removal and re-installation):

Needle nose pliars
Nine different size/shape metal dental picks
Tweezers
Small flat-head screw driver
Heat gun (for the glides)
SailKote (LOTS)
Razor blade
Dremel tool with a cutting wheel
Small hack saw
Advil
Adult beverage of your choice (more than the amount of SailKote)
Patience (more than the amount of adult beverage and SailKote combined)
IPOD with 1,118 songs loaded so you don't feel so alone - no one wants to stop by for fear of being asked to help.

I had to sit on that 1/8" thick (or less) strip of metal (bottom part of the frame, as shown in Sky's photo above) for about an hour leaning backwards over the water in what felt like the world's longest sit-up, working on getting enough of the glued-on metal pull cut and removed so I could get the window out. I won't begin to describe how sore my affected body parts are for that one! Last time I tried to use the putty knife to slide in between the metal pull strip and the glass, I broke the glass - now, I cut the top 1/4" off the pull with a Dremel cutting wheel.

Ahead of me...five more frames, each with three tracks (that means six rounds of friggin fuzz), and on one of those windows, some bonehead epoxied the window in place thinking that's how you fix a leak. IDIOT! Window still leaks. 'Cuz that's NOT how you fix a leak, not in a window, anyway.

I found that it was easier to install the fuzz (not that it was easy by any means) before you install the glide and then just run one of the dental picks along side of the glide to lift the fuzz back up over the glide. I had both scenarios, and hands down, the fuzz was harder to install after the glide was in place. For me, glide goes in last.

As for the suggestion to replace these every three to four years. NO WAY!! will I bite of on this again in just a few years! These lasted 28 years, and in 28 years, the stuff I'm installing today will still be there! I will finish the other five frames because they need doing (though, I haven't said "when"). After that, if it needs doing again...time for new windows.

So, now you know how I really feel about replacing window fuzz and glides. I will admit that the windows do slide so much better with new glides underneath them.

Thanks to the search feature, I found the thread where I mentioned having done the fuzz and glides on a window that had been broken during Hurricane Wilma before I bought the boat. I wondered how long ago it had been. I fully understand Ned's feeling on this - he's done ONE. Until today, I had done just one because it was such a PITA!

Today, I finally removed that glass that I shattered after follwing advice here about using a putty knife to get the pull off the side - don't do that! One slight tap just like I was instructed, and my window shattered, but remained intact. It's been like that for a few years now. Today, it's finally out and I'll be installing a new glass next week. Meanwhile....I picked out about 1,100 linear inches of fuzz with a dental pick, while Ed did demolition duty on the crew dinette (I found better use for that space than a junk-collecting dinette). Perhaps I'll do the other window three years from now.

I went to the catalog and looked for this fuzz stuff but came up empty. What is the part name and who has it?

Look under "wool" for wool pile.

Sams has it. Go here:

http://www.samsmarine.com/PartSearch/LinkPart.cfm?ItemNmbr=59040

Sky Graci.

I have some projects piling up and this is one of them.