I believe it was John Althouse (who bought the Marinette name, plans, and equipt) who suggested cutting about 1/2 the ht of the outer most window channel side. That retains the glass but allows one to lift it up and over the now shortened lip. Saves lots of time in removing the channel. My experience is that replacing glass is a pain in the glass.

Price would be in the neighborhood of $75 for the glass. As noted by Jeff, plastic will do just fine for sliding windows. Even if you have to replace it when it gets scratched, it is not expensive. You could use the existing glass as a cutting template and plastic will come in a wider variety of tints.

Thank you. Glad you found the post.

On any plastic windows, try ...1. rinse off any loose dust and dirt
2. wash with soap and water, lightly rub if needed but don't rub the dirt into the soft plastic
3. dry with clean cloth ( some paper towels are rough )
4. spray on Lemon Pledge and polish with dry clean cloth ( has lots of wax in it that will fill in the
scratches )

I found that most headlight lens cleaning kits are not worth it. I would stick with 3M buffing compounds. I used Perfect-It 3000 (06062) to fix a sun blasted cloudy plexi-glass window in my sail boat I had to power sand a lot of material off with 400 until I got past the cloudy layer. Then I worked my way up hand block sanding until I finished with 1500 and machine buffed it out with the compound. I used the same basic system on the factory plastic windscreen on my 32' Marininette flybridge. Except I started with 800 because I only had to sand off light scratches and slight yellowing. On my head lights I used 1500 and the compound.

That stuff didn't work that well on the dull fiber glass on my sailboat so I traveled to a boatyard to see what they used. They said they were a "production shop" and couldn't fool around. They used a rinseless spot remover, light hand wet sanding with 400 then 600, then buffing with 3M Imperial Compound and Finishing Material (06044). That's what I did and I got great results.

Incidentally, I tried a cleaner wax on a test area. I looked great for about a week then it faded right out again. The buffing treatment holds up.

I tried the Perfect-it on some fiber glass but it was too fine and tended to overheat and kind of melt the gel-coat.

I also have to buff out the new paint on my project 32'. I will try both but I think the Perfect-it 3000 is the right stuff.

3M products do what they are suppose to do work!

I use 3M Finese-it. Used it for many years for show buffing varnish on show boats. It will work on Lexan etc but finish off with 3M Pefect.

dave

It is not just using the right tools that is important. It is knowing how to use them. I started out as the most incompetent buffer/polisher in the whole U.P. The problem was the 40 years I spent as a computer engineer. Everything I did at work was symbolic or a model. I made enough dough to pay for all my mechanical and maintenance needs. A project Marinette is a real thing. I subject myself to a lot of failure and do overs everytime I work on my boat and things are going slow because everything is a first time task for me. But I love it and this forum really helps.

With regard to buffing polishing compounds. Less is more. I used too darn much at first and it just caked up my buffing pads. The stuff should dry as you use it. The polisher should be a little grabby only at first. At the end it should glide across the work. I have both foam and wool pads. I can't tell you which pads to use or whether to use dual-action or rotary tools. There is some "art" to it and you just have to work with your own tools.

Up here in the U.P. of Michigan we have to mail order a lot of stuff. I use this Gettysburg store for my buffer pads and fine sandpaper.

http://www.supergrit.com/