Cary and I are feeling a bit smug at the moment as we have just repaired and replaced our no-longer-delaminated front nearside window in our c'van and it's looking good. As we posted previously, we found that the window had delaminated whilst away on our summer hols in France. We have been considering our repair/replacement options since we got home.
We used an adhesive from Bondrite. In the end we used the "runnier" "S1220" adhesive.
I had originally ordered the thicker "S1225" (50ml) adhesive from Bondrite but a very helpful guy from Bondrite emailed me to say they were out of stock and offered me 2 x25ml of "S1220" instead. He recommended this for the job I was doing and, also, pointed that it had the added advantage of being in syringes for hand dispensing rather than the "S1220" which was designed for use in a dispensing "gun". Another advantage I had worked out myself was that, unlike some acrylic "weld" products which welded the acrylic by fusing them together, this adhesive would not damage the screen printed pattern around the edge of the window.
The adhesive arrived quickly by 1st class recorded delivery although I did think £6 for carriage a bit steep!!!! The adhesive alone cost £25.62, again, a bit pricey.
As a fine day was promised, assisted by Cary I unscrewed the window stays and then we lifted the window above horizontal and it unhooked from the hanging rail. Thanks for those on the forum who explained how to do this when I asked.
The adhesive came with 5 A4 pages of rather scary "Safety Data" and another "Technical Data" sheet. I followed Bondrite's advice contained in these and we wore safety gloves and eye protectors whilst actually using the adhesive. The adhesive came in 2 x twin piston dispensers which mixed the 2 parts of the adhesive when the piston was depressed.
We placed the window inside pane down on our kitchen table which was covered with newspaper and a polythene sheet. I carefully cleaned the inner faces of the window panes along the 2 delaminated edges by sliding a thin-bladed pallet knife wrapped with paper kitchen towel between the panes. I then wedged the 2 layers of the window open with 8, prepared, short sections of 1cm square section wood. To ensure that there was no excess moisture trapped between the panes I played Cary's hair dryer on a low heat along gap between the delaminated panes.
I then fitted the narrow dispensing nozzle to one of the piston dispensers and ran a thin bead of adhesive along the inner layer of the lower, inside, window pane. Immediately I had finished dispensing the adhesive I quickly removed the wedges, whilst holding the layers apart with the pallet knife, and inserted further adhesive where the wedges had been. I then quickly joined the l panes together and clamped the edge with plastic clamps. I carefully wiped off any extra adhesive with a cloth. After 10 minutes curing time I trimmed off any hardened adhesive which had exuded from the joint with a Stanley knife and then gently sanded the joined edges to get rid of any adhesive “bumps”.
We left the window for the afternoon for the adhesive to harden and then this evening we replaced the repaired window in the caravan. This proved to be quite difficult as it was hard to keep the hinge bar hooked into the hanging rail. It was not possible to slide the hinge in from the side as I had done when resealing a previous c'van because the windows are recessed into the front of the c'van.
I began to think we would have to unscrew one end of the rail from the c'van, however, after removing the rubber plug from the outer end of the rail we managed to get the hinge correctly seated. I then quickly screwed the window stays back in place and the job was finished.
Well I thought it was finished but I then realised that I had left out the rubber plug. As it was by then dark we decided to leave this until tomorrow and daylight!!
We are very pleased with our efforts. I will replace window rail plug tomorrow and may do a little more sanding along the joined edges and but other than that "the job's a good un"!!! We will not be using the c’van for the next couple of weeks and so the adhesive will have plenty to time to reach its full strength. The Bondrite chap said it would reach full strength in 8 hours.
We actually only needed one 25 ml adhesive dispenser and we have only used half of that. Even with the cost of the unused adhesive we have saved ourselves £70+ on the £100 cost of a repair by EEC and £400+ on the cost of a replacement window. In addition our repaired window is, of course, a perfect match for the other windows both in shade and printed border and still has the CRIS number etched on. In addition we were able to remove, repair and replace the window in one day negating the need to seal up the window aperture against the weather whilst the window was out and for the c’van to be out of use for an extended period.
A VERY BIG THANK YOU to all on the forum who had done this job previously and, with their advice, literally en-couraged us to try this for ourselves.
Hi everyone. I do wish I had found this post before butchering my poor defenceless caravan. About 18 months ago I discovered the front windows on my Abbey GTS Vogue had started to delaminate. I tried twice to reglue/bond them to no avail I then drilled small holes in the bottom of the windows (forgive me, I didn't have hundreds of pounds and the time spare to replace or have the repair carried out professionally) to keep the two pieces of acryllic together.
AS we are now in lockdown due to this dreadful virus I decided tu try once more to undo the damage I had inflicted on my van. Basically as you can see I discoverd Bondrite S1220. I contacted Bondrite and spoke to Robert who talked me through the whole procedure and has the patience of a saint, as his company can only operate three days a week at the moment he even gave me his mobile number so that I could contact him for further advice and moral support in the interim.
Bottom line is repair is 100% successful, with the benefit of hindsight I could have saved myself and caravan so much stress and agravation had I discovered Bondrite first time round.
Tips: 1. the adhesive tends to go a little further than states in instructions but better safe than sorry I guess. 2. Take your time, do one window at a time, the product is very easy to use and forgiving can cope with gaps of 2mm apparently, before applying the product place the outer layer of the window down and put the inner layer in to place so that you can see where there might possibly be gaps, if there are gaps then gently squeexe the gaps together so as not to deform the whole window (which I did, had to modify fixings to make them fit again, undo the clamps apply the adhesive and gently reclamp.
Do not hesitate to contact Bondrite if you have any queries, they are only too willing to help. Take care everyone and stay safe. Thomas
Hi everyone. Came across this old thread searching for a solution for my delaminated windows on Knaus caravan 2005. Do any of you still have the caravans in question? Does this still work or did it only work as a temporary solution?
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Topic: We`ve repaired the delaminated w
good post for anyone needing to do it.
