The hatch tops in my cockpit are in bad condition on my Vega. I went
to the local lumber and mill work supply and they have some beautiful
mahogany. It is rough cut for $6.00 and they will mill it for $1.00 a
board ft. I am going to make new hatch tops and companion way trim
and drop boards. I may make the hatch board 3/4 thick. If that doesn't
work out I will by plywood for that and of course it will be the
original thickness The ones on the boat are plywood but don't look
great. I am thinking that the thicker boards since they will be solid
wood will need to be thicker to keep them from warping. My seat hatch
tops are made from two pieces of mahogany glued together with wood
straps across the backs of them. The straps have the grain running
across them and they are stapled on with long staples. I suspect they
were put on that way so they would contract and expad at the same rate
as the tops. I'm guessing that was intended to keep the tops from
cracking. I would like to have the tops look like the originals but
I am not sure what they look like except for the picture in the
brochure. Mine may be original? Any body got any ideas on all this?
Here I am 200 miles from the nearest water working my butt off on
boats. My daughters tiller broke on her day sailer so I built a new
one. I am refinishing a little 20 ft canoe yawl I build and working on
my Vega. But all is well that ends well my wife and I will be driving
to our boat and will spend two weeks sailing the Chesapeake bay. We
will be retracing some of the places we sailed to when we were young and
there was a lot of romance on board. We will visit tangier island ,
Grog island, Urbana, Indian creek and will work our way up crab ally on
the eastern shore. To then go back home to Yankee Point Marina on the
Caratoman river. I am as excited as a one legged man at an ass kicking
Doug
to the local lumber and mill work supply and they have some beautiful
mahogany. It is rough cut for $6.00 and they will mill it for $1.00 a
board ft. I am going to make new hatch tops and companion way trim
and drop boards. I may make the hatch board 3/4 thick. If that doesn't
work out I will by plywood for that and of course it will be the
original thickness The ones on the boat are plywood but don't look
great. I am thinking that the thicker boards since they will be solid
wood will need to be thicker to keep them from warping. My seat hatch
tops are made from two pieces of mahogany glued together with wood
straps across the backs of them. The straps have the grain running
across them and they are stapled on with long staples. I suspect they
were put on that way so they would contract and expad at the same rate
as the tops. I'm guessing that was intended to keep the tops from
cracking. I would like to have the tops look like the originals but
I am not sure what they look like except for the picture in the
brochure. Mine may be original? Any body got any ideas on all this?
Here I am 200 miles from the nearest water working my butt off on
boats. My daughters tiller broke on her day sailer so I built a new
one. I am refinishing a little 20 ft canoe yawl I build and working on
my Vega. But all is well that ends well my wife and I will be driving
to our boat and will spend two weeks sailing the Chesapeake bay. We
will be retracing some of the places we sailed to when we were young and
there was a lot of romance on board. We will visit tangier island ,
Grog island, Urbana, Indian creek and will work our way up crab ally on
the eastern shore. To then go back home to Yankee Point Marina on the
Caratoman river. I am as excited as a one legged man at an ass kicking
Doug