toilette.
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I use the last mild days of fall to install portholes to the cabin. A friend of mine found a bunch of Lewmar brand portholes in the marina's metal garbage container 3 years ago. Although they were not looking too good at first, that the seals were worn out and the aluminum frame that goes inside was missing, some elbow grease, replacing those seals and cleaning them would make them serviceable again. I ended up with some really nice portholes that would be just fine for me, at a fraction of the usual price asked in boat supplies stores. There's 6 rectangular, 16 inches long portholes, 2 smaller 13 inches long ones, and a large 20 inches hatch. I plan to install that hatch at the front, instead of that bulky and ugly cover I have to lift to access the inside through the toilet section. When I laminated the panels that would form the sides of the new roof, I already had the portholes at hand, and so I could already plan, were I would put them and install pieces of white oak as reinforcments to prevent the Core-Cell from being compressed by the installation ot these portholes. By transparency, we can see some of these pieces of reinforcments on some of the photos. I put the smaller 13 inches long rectangular portholes in the toilet section.


Les 6 hublots rectangulaires de 16 pouces vont sur les cotés de la cabine.
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The 6 rectangular 16 inches portholes goes on the cabin's side.

Les hublots qui vont a l'avant de la cabine ont une forme irrégulière et ne sont pas ouvrables. Bien des gens n'auraient fait qu'appliquer une pièce de plexiglass de 1/8 de pouce d'épais coupé selon la forme voulue et les auraient vissés en place avec un peu de Sikaflex pour l'étanchéité. Je trouve que faire comme cela manque de finition et que ce n'est pas très solide. J'ai choisi de découper dans du plexiglass de 1/2 pouce d'épais, soit un peu moins que l'épaisseur de mes murs, des panneaux correspondant au trous prévus dans le mur, et maintenair les plexiglass en place avec des cadres en aluminium tant a l'intérieur qu'a l'extérieur, prenant en sandwich le plexiglass et le mur. J'ai fait faire ces cadres en aluminium sur mesure selon mes dimensions et le sous traitant les a aussi anodisé afin de les protéger contre la corrosion. On voit sur cette photo, les deux hublots du centre, installés, en pleine noirceur alors qu'il est 8 heures du soir (je venais tout juste de finir de les installer), le 29 septembre 2010. C'est solide.
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The portholes that goes at the front of the cabin have an irregular shape and cannot be opened. Many people would have contented themselves with a piece of thin plexiglass screwed over the opening with some sikaflex for watertightness. But I feel that doing like that does not look nice and is not very sturdy. I choosed to cut in a piece of plexiglass 1/2 inches thick, slightly less than the tickness of the walls, panels corresponding to the cutouts in the walls, and fix them in place using aluminum frames both inside and outside, just like a sandwich with the plexiglass and the wall in the middle. I had these aluminum frames cut to my dimensions by a subcontractor that also anodized them for rust protection. On this photo, we see the centermost portholes, in total darkness as it was 8h in the evening (I just finished installing them), september 29th, 2010. It is sturdy.
