Hatch repair

[RAD88]

I did a bit of homework on this and found I could have the hatches bead blasted, powder coated and tempered glass installed for a very reasonable price. The hatches are cast aluminum and very expensive to replace. Any thoughts on this?

 

[Maine Sail]

I did a bit of homework on this and found I could have the hatches bead blasted, powder coated and tempered glass installed for a very reasonable price. The hatches are cast aluminum and very expensive to replace. Any thoughts on this?

Deck hatches or ports? I would not advise using tempered glass in deck hatches. Cast acrylic is the industry standard and is tough and long lasting. I replaced my cast acrylic last winter at 30 years old. Select Plastics does great hatch re-builds.

Personally I have not had much luck with powder coatings holding up to the marine environment. Radar mounts, radar poles, Edson pedestals etc. have just not held up as I'd have expected them to when powder coated. If they are currently anodized I'd leave them alone or paint with AwlGrip. The original formulation and trade name for AwlGrip was AlumiGrip.

Get them bead blasted then drop them at a yard that does a lot of AwlGrip. They will probably spray them off the tail of a white Awlgrip job for a reasonable price..

 

[Ross]

Tempered glass will break and when it does it all breaks according to Murphy's law. At the wrost posible time. Stay with the plastic.

 

[dserrell]

1

 

[BobM]

I'm glad to hear you have an opinion on select plastics Mainesail. I found them last year and plan to have them do the forward hatch on my S2, which is just a 3/4 inch sheet of smoked lexan with about a million holes drilled in it for the hardward and to mount teak strips on it.

 

[Maine Sail]

I'm glad to hear you have an opinion on select plastics Mainesail. I found them last year and plan to have them do the forward hatch on my S2, which is just a 3/4 inch sheet of smoked lexan with about a million holes drilled in it for the hardward and to mount teak strips on it.

Tony is the the Nigel Calder of plastics. He runs an amazing operation and also spent years working directly for Cyro who is one of the largest maker of cast acrylic.

I'd be surprised if your hatch was Lexan as most hatch manufacturers use cast acrylic. Bomar is the only one I know of using Lexan and it is only on one series of hatch. It is easy to discern which Bomars are Lexan because they have cross bars to support and prevent the flexing and foreshortening of the Lexan.