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Old 03-19-2009, 02:37 PM   #2
Marin
Scraping Paint
 
City: -
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 13,745
RE: CPES on window frame

We use CPES on our frames as we continue our ongoing project to overhaul all the windows on our boat. However we apply the CPES to the frame after it's been removed from the boat and stripped.

The caulk between the frame and the glass should in theory prevent the CPES from gluing the frame and pane together (if it will even glue them together-- I have my doubts). But it's anyone's guess what shape the caulk on your windows is in, and how thoroughly it was applied.

The instructions with CPES (we get ours from Rot Doctor in Seattle so I don't know how his instructions differ from the other makers of the stuff) say to remove all the finish and all traces of crumbly wood before applying the penetrating epoxy. We had a frame section that had some bad wood in it, so we sanded out the bad wood and filled and faired the low spot in the frame with the epoxy putty that Rot Doctor sells for this purpose. But this kind of work generally has to be done with the frame off the boat.

CPES doesn't penetrate very far into wood. If the spot you are trying to seal up is not actually adjacent to the glass, the chances are the CPES won't move through the wood far enough to encounter the glass. And CPES is different than "regular" epoxy. It's made to fill wood cells, not act as a super adhesive. So even if a bit of CPES does get between the frame and the glass I would be very surprised if it sticks the two together to the point where you would risk breaking something if you had to take them apart at a later date.
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