Five days later...and we accomplished a lot!  We have finished the window jobs. Removed two small windows, grinded the rust away, applied 2 coats of epoxy, some West System, and one coat of paint before sticking the window frame back again using white rubber butyle (did we say that we would never use that stuff again...?). The big challenge was to replace the 4 large Lexan panels and choose a solution which, we hope, would hinder rust building up between the pane and the steel window frame (this space is now completely filled with Sikaflex).  This time around, we used Plexiglas instead of Lexan, and affixed the panes instead of using screws...they look absolutely great, very professionally made!

And what about the new toe rail that Heiner is making out of African mahagony???? I never thought that this thick wood rail would bend! But with the right application of force (!) it actually does! This was our trial run and the scarfing system proved to work out perfectly! (This illustration found on Brian Dixon's page

 gives some idea about scarfing)