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Hatches, pt. 2

I've been working on the main hatch for the past few days. Today I did the big glue-up for it.

The first step was to line the inside of the hatch opening with thin strips of wood that would extend up above the deck. Mine extend 5/8" above the deck, but I just chose that length randomly based on how it looked.


The hatch cover is held down by magnets. You can see the inner magnets in the picture above. They have been embedded in the fore and aft strips of wood. I used a 1/2" Forstner bit to make the holes, and then epoxied them in. When epoxying them in, I set the strips on plastic so that the magnet would be completely embedded in epoxy and wouldn't come out. It also smooths the side of the wood.

Next, I got to work on the hatch cover. It too will have a piece of wood both fore and aft with matching magnets. See the picture below. Then on the outside of those pieces, I will epoxy a nicer looking piece of cedar.


In the picture below, you can see the plastic spacer I used between the two magnets. It kept the epoxy from sticking to the inside hatch pieces when the cover pieces were curing. 


Below is a picture of the how the end pieces of the cover were glued up. When cured, the end pieces came off easily due to the plastic spacers.


Today, I fitted the side pieces to the end pieces, and then glued the whole thing together, including the top of the cover.


After about six hours, I removed the cover (it was a bit tough to get off as a small amount of epoxy somehow got between one of the corners. But it finally came off. I'll need to do a bit of a cosmetic fix later) and ran a bead of thickened epoxy around the inside top edges to further secure the 1/16" plywood that forms the curved cover.

Tomorrow I'll remove it again and start any cleanup and final shaping of the cover.

Then onto starting the rig. Finally!


Peace!


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