UV Polycarbonate cabin windows

[PetitPoisson]

Previous owner siliconed the crap out of the cracking cabin windows/frames.

I was watching one of my favourite YouTube channels "BoatworksToday" and he was mounting some cabin windows that he made on a sailboat.  Holy smokes! There's no reason the frameless concept won't work on the Arima.  May need to use some pan head screws due to curvature, but it will work.

I dropped by Industrial Plastics and Paint yesterday and after a conversation on polycarbonate and acrylic, I picked up a 12"x24" polycarbonate sheet in Bronze that is UV coated.  Get home and realize there's no indication on which side the UV coating is on  .  Do an internet search and this is not an easy thing to figure out.  Call Industrial Plastics and Paint and am basically given a "not our problem" response.  Not going to lie, I'm not impressed.  I call down to the manufacturer and Tech responded "without a label, you've got a 50/50 chance on picking the correct side". 

This evening, I had an eye exam.  I also had the piece on the back seat of my truck.  Chatting with the lady who does my sunglasses, I ask how they test for UV resistance with their sunglasses.  She responded with "we don't, it's done at the lab, I promise your sunglasses are UV protected".  I let her know why I'm asking and head into my exam.  I talk to the Dr. about this and apparently all polycarbonate glasses are automatically UV protected.  He could send my sheet to the lab for testing... Lol, my Dr. is awesome but I'm not going to put everyone through that.  My appointment is done and I'm almost heading out the door.  My glasses lady flags me over.  "Go get your sheet of polycarbonate, I think I know how to figure this out".

So we pull back some of the protective film, set a UV light on top and place some auto tinting lenses under the polycarbonate.  Nope, that caused the lens to darken.  Flip the sheet over and repeat the process.  The lens DID NOT darken!  WooHoo! 

As a thank you, I'll drop by with a bottle of wine for her tomorrow.

Anyway, wanted to let others know that there is a solution to figuring out which side of an unmarked UV protected polycarbonate is the UV side.

[davidsea]

   Good find!  Thanks for posting.

[AJFishin]

I'll save you from the Oscar worthy performance, skip ahead to the 1:40 mark to see how to tell which side the UV is on. FYI, some sheets have 2 UV sides.

https://youtu.be/x3qT2QrlsPc?si=XzbYBwVrOi1jOsD3

[PetitPoisson]

I'll save you from the Oscar worthy performance, skip ahead to the 1:40 mark to see how to tell which side the UV is on. FYI, some sheets have 2 UV sides.

https://youtu.be/x3qT2QrlsPc?si=XzbYBwVrOi1jOsD3

Yes, I did see this video in my quest to puzzle it all out.  My daughter was quite intrigued as to why I had the first aid kit out on the kitchen counter and was dropping Iodine on a test corner of the panel.  It did NOT work.  It clearly worked in that video though.  Possibly different results for a different manufacturers product?!?  Maybe it didn't work as it wasn't washed?!?  I really don't have an answer as to why.

With the Iodine test not working, I thought that I might have a 2 sided UV sheet.  A quick look on the manufactures website, they label that as the 2XL UV.  I have the XL UV which is only coated on 1 side.  So that quickly ruled that out.

[AJFishin]

Is there a possible by accident you got the 2 sided sheet?

[ohmytodd]

My side windows are frameless, fwiw. They look better that way.

[PetitPoisson]

Is there a possible by accident you got the 2 sided sheet?

No, the auto tint eyeglasses went dark on one side when the UV light was placed above it.  They didn't go dark when the other side of the panel was used.  We can safely rule out factory error (incorrect labelling of product).

It's also possible that the Iodine test did work but the discolouration is not noticeable due to the bronze tint of the polycarbonate.  Since the laser eye surgery, my close up vision is not what it once was.  Knowing this, I did have magnifying readers and good lighting when I was checking for any discolouration.  So I'm pretty confident when saying it didn't work on this panel.

[PetitPoisson]

Just received an email...

For our non UV, it would have film that would just be plain white with no writing or UV instruction.
For our XL 1UV coating, one side would be white film, one side would have instruction.
You have film with instruction on both sides so you have UV protection on both sides.
Hope this makes sense.
Thank you
 
Matt


While I'm very greatful for the Canadian Rep's email response.  It doesn't explain why the UV light and glasses worked on 1 side and not the other when we tested it.  It also doesn't explain the comment made by the tech down in the US that I spoke with (you have a 50/50 chance).  Regardless, I've marked the side that worked in our very unscientific test 🤣 and will be placing it as the outside surface when I get into this project.