PEP Badge: Oddball

Do I get a .25 for re-caulking kitchen trim? I could have fit a penny through that gap.

Well, I was trying to use my truck to pull a short school bus about 15 feet forward. Problem was it had sat for 8 years or so and old the wheels were locked up, as I later confirmed. Anyway, a chain link broke and took out the rear glass of my camper top. I did have things wrapped around the chains for such scenarios but clearly it wasn't at enough points (the truck could only get to about 40ft from the bus without spending days moving obstacles).

After the wasted time of cleaning up every little piece of glass a cursory search on the internet for somewhere nearby to get it cheaply replaced proved frustrating.  I decided to try to do it myself and save my money. I had a decent piece of plexi glass the right thickness and big enough for the job laying around in the miscellaneous junk. Some rivets had to be drilled out to dismantle the window frame and clean out the rest of the shattered glass and remove the old gasket. I traced the frame opening onto the acrylic sheet and taped both sides with masking tape along the cut line. I used a jig saw to cut out the replacement window which worked pretty well, but felt it would be easy to ruin it with a crack. A test fit showed that I needed to remove material along the straight edge at the bottom. I taped it as well and used a utility knife and straight edge on both sides to score the line. I used a small sheet metal hand brake to break off the waste, it didn't do so in one piece but it worked out okay. I used a product I found at the big box store for a new seal and finished the repair with new rivets in the holes of the frame. Success! It felt good to fix my mistake without having to pay for anything other than the butyl tape which was under $10.