Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Cabin poptop hatch unmolded

Monday night I laminated an extra layer of A on the inside surface of the hatch (since the plans say A-core-A, and the inside only had B). Today I unmolded the hatch and it doesn't look too bad:

And:

Clearly it will need some trimming (both to level it out, and to shorten the sides) but I'm feeling better that it doesn't look too lopsided or otherwise unsalvageable. I plan to clamp some temporary wood supports to the hatch coamings on the boat to hold the hatch up, then scribe a trim line so the hatch fits reasonably close to the deck.

I also laminated a layer of A around the bottom edge of my settee stiffeners. Wrapping that relatively heavy glass around a 3/8" edge is hard. I routed a curve on both sides, sanded it smooth, and put a thin layer of bog on the edge and sides to help hold the glass in place, but it still kept wanting to lift off from that edge. So I brute-forced the job: continually pulling the edges of the peel-ply down on each side to force the glass back around the curve, until the epoxy finally started to setup hard. A fun twenty minutes... Clamping is another option but a clamp hard enough to hold always seems to leave indentations in the glass; not sure which option is worse. Anyway it's done and both stiffeners are sitting on top of the boat; they should be nearly post-cured after tomorrow's anticipated 100 deg F day.

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