Looking for tips on cutting out door windows

[beeryboats]

Hi Guys!
Due to a fuel leak the right door window is yellow and cracked around the rivets. So I'm replacing both sides. The nice folks at Kitfox sold me new plastic but it's oversize. What is the best method and tool to use to cut to size? I'm lucky to have the old "glass" to use as a pattern which will make it easy. I hope! The bad news is I have all those rivet butts rattling around in the door tubes.
Thanks for any help.
Jay

P.S. does anyone recall the rivet size? Looks like 1/8"x1/4".

[efwd]

Dont use a jigsaw! ;-). Thats for our friend.
Band saw or a plastic cutting disk on a dremel. Dremel worked great for me. Just took a file to the edges afterwards and they look great.
Eddie

[beeryboats]

Dont use a jigsaw! ;-). Thats for our friend.
Band saw or a plastic cutting disk on a dremel. Dremel worked great for me. Just took a file to the edges afterwards and they look great.
Eddie

I have a band saw. What type of blade? Wood or metal?

[avidflyer]

Not sure what you're using, but you can cut the .060" lexan with a pair of tin snips. Lots of other ways as well. JImChuk

[efwd]

Beeryboat, If you haven't got yourself a dremel yet I highly recommend it. I didn't put a lot of weight into the suggestion my friend gave me but once I did I am never going to be without one. I use it for so many things. It makes such easy work of grinding and sanding things to a very close tolerance. Since I didn't use the bandsaw myself on the doors I might defer the tooth count to someone who did. I can't imagine using a wood blade. I have used the high tooth count blade (metal) to cut my fiberglass as well as some scrap plexiglass and it works great. I have not used a low tooth count blade on such material so I don't know what will happen. When I cut plexiglass and fiberglass with the metal blade, the blade goes through like butter so you don't apply any pressure at all. Just enough to advance the piece along as the blade does all the work. I have not dinged anything thus far.
Eddie

[Grant4ever]

I literally just got done making new side windows for my Series 7.

Used a fine tooth bandsaw blade to cut them slightly oversize and then took down to the final size with a block and sandpaper.

Per the manual, the rivets are 1/8" by 1/4". Be sure to step up your holes to 5/32" (before pulling rivets) to reduce the possibility of cracks.

Leave the protective film on as long as possible to reduce the likelihood of scratches while doing all this.

[efwd]

Oh, in fact, I also cut those triangle windows with my fine tooth bandsaw. No problem.

[beeryboats]

Thanks all! Grant, I hope all is dry down there. And thanks for the tip on hole size. I would have screwed that up for sure.
As the new plastic has a protective cover on it I thought I would just take the old window and put it over the new one and hit the edges and holes with a can of spray paint. That will give me the perfect edge and hole pattern.
Good idea or bad???

[avidflyer]

When I had the old window, I clamped it to the new piece, and drilled the holes using the old holes as a guide. Holes always fit good then. Marked the edge with a magic marker. JImChuk

[Grant4ever]

I took the new windows and carefully peeled back the protective covering all the way around the edges, so that I could see exactly what I was doing.

I then placed the windows in position and carefully drilled straight thru the window into the existing holes in the door frame.

As each hole was drilled, I secured the window with a cleco and moved on to the next. I started in the middle and worked my way out in each direction.

With all holes drilled, I then removed the clecos and stepped up the holes in the window to 5/32".

With everything cleaned up and pretty, I resecured the windows in position and started pulling rivets.

They turned out great.