Spent all day Sat and Sun finishing stripping off as much bottom paint as the stripper would take and sanding the no skid off the deck of the boat. Got about 70% of the deck covered, plan to knock the rest that out early sat then move to the hull.
Wanted to have pictures up earlier but didn't have many of the first hatch I made as my girlfriend was eager to help and take pictures:
But after making a small man, a cup, and a horse out of molding clay and taking 3 pictures she lost interest in being in a garage that smelled like duratec.
She did get two decent pictures of the process (that was borrowed from strick's famous "Here we go again" post). Below is after I measured the O.D. of the hatch and screwed down 3/4" board to the MDF, took clay and rolled it out to about a 3/8" diameter and then pushed it in the corners of the wood, then a metal spoon was used to make a nice even radius all the way around.
Another angle (the 3rd and last picture she took
)
So rather than post those 3 pictures I waited until tonight when I did the rest of my hatches and took more myself.
Hatch O.D. is formed out of 3/4" wood, and mold release wax is applied, and then buffed.
My anchor locker hatch (and fish box but that hatch is in good condition and I'm not remaking it) has indented rectangles where the hinge rests:
I used strips of 1/4" plywood to make a place in the mold for those.
Below is me test fitting the coring, on my first hatch I didn't bevel the edges and the fiberglass didn't like trying to bend at the 90 to go from on top of the core to the hatch, the 45 degree bevel made it a nice smooth transition.
Duratec (had no idea the "Grey" was gonna be THIS dark) primer is applied onto the waxed surface and the corner pieces of glass are pushed into place forming the corners.
Don't have anymore layup pictures after this but after the corner pieces are in place and the duratec is getting tacky I place 3" strips all along the edges and wet them out. Then I place a sheet of glass that overlaps the edges of the mold by about 1" on each side down and wet it out, after that is wet I lay down another sheet just like it on top. After that I wet out and place down my coring running 2" strips of glass along its edges so I can pour in thickened resin (thickened with wood flour) in between the coring. Then a final layer of glass is placed on top of the coring that is cut to fit the exact dimensions of the hatch so that it just lays on top of the other pieces and doesn't run up the side walls.
Here is a shot of them drying:
I'll be popping these out friday (ample time to set up as its a little cold here) and will take some pics of the finished product. This weekend looks nice so another weekend of sanding, scupper, and console work for me.
Thanks for looking.