Ok, this was the big weekend. I finally pulled the trigger on my top hatch! It went pretty smoothly overall. First I epoxied in the frame to get everything held in the correct shape. After that epoxy cured enough I was able to do the hatch itself. Here’s the frame getting ready to be clamped. This wasn’t enough thickened epoxy. I had to make another batch to finish the fillet.
Here it is the next day with the hatch removed. Those two clamps squished the top of the shell down just a bit and the cured epoxy is holding it in that shape. Now to fill in the gaps then set the hatch in place and fillet it.
Then wait an hour and do some smoothing with denatured alcohol.
And here’s one of the main reasons I wanted this kind of hatch… it’s looooow profile!
Some hours later and after some careful hammering, I got the hatch out to remove the protective tape. Now I just need to clean up that mondo fillet and I’m calling the top hatch pretty much done. I’ll bed it with butyl caulk and screws.
