Reparing the main hatch.

[CloudDiver]

Roy,
Be careful with the thickness of your flanges. You might want to test them in the rails before you spray the gelcoat. I had used Ken's method of 4 pumps of epoxy and a tape dam to thicken my flanges. After sanding to just ensure they were level I measured them against the slot on the rail. My new rails have an exact .250 inch slot, so I planed the hatch flanges to .230... shoulda worked perfect right? Nope... When I had first test fit the hatch it wasn't sliding easy and totally hung up about half way. On close inspection I noticed that when the rails are screwed from the bottom snug to pop-top they are actually curved downward! The flange would hang up in the middle and actually scraped off some of my pretty new paint job.... I was super pissed. I had to sand/plane down the flange considerably. I never bother repairing the scrapes in the paint, they are pretty well hidden in the rails. Anyway, maybe on your new design 22 they made the area where the rails are more flat. If I remember I'll snap a pic from the bow and you'll notice the curve I'm talking about. Just to keep in mind...

 

[Leeward Rail]

@CloudDiver Thanks VERY much for the heads up !

I had tested the rails on the flanges, off the boat, and they are ok.
I never thought about any possible curve being induced when they are attached to the deck, mainly due to the fact the rails are so thick/stiff.

It should be sunny for a few days, so I can remount the hatch+rails on the boat tomorrow and see how well it slides.

 

[Leeward Rail]

I test mounted the hatch today.

On our 1987 new design, the wood rails look straight when mounted.
If anything, the slots are slightly concave when the rails are screwed down to the poptop.

The slots in the rails are slightly over 6.8 mm (.268 in).
Slots are slightly narrower at the bottom, but the lips don't go in that far.

The hatch slides ok, but I'll sand the lips a bit thinner.
Hopefully that will minimize abrading of the teak rails and gelcoat, and make it slide as easy as possible.

 

[Leeward Rail]

Hatch lips are now sanded to 6.8 mm (or less), using a vernier caliper as a guide.
Rails slide easy, and allow a small amount of vertical play.

The ugly task was matching the gelcoat.
The bottom of the hatch is not the same colour as the top. it's more of a yellowish cream/beige.
So used black, brown and yellow pigment.
I ended up making it too dark at one point, so I had to add more white gelcoat (I didn't have white tint).
A bit of this a bit of that... it's still a bit off, but it's close enough, since I'm not doing a spot repair.
Since I don't have white pigment, to get it exact I'd end up using up more of my white gelcoat, which I' rather use for the top of the hatch.

Now it's time to apply the gelcoat....

It's exciting to try new things, but I must admit I'm wishing that it works well.
Rebuilding a hatch probably isn't the best choice for a first attempt. But hey.. I'm prone to do that type of thing.
Fingers crossed.

 

[dzl]

Good luck! I like to try new things too but I don't envy you. Gelcoat sounds daunting

 

[justsomeguy]

The ugly task was matching the gelcoat.

T'was ever thus.

The bottom of the hatch is not the same colour as the top. it's more of a yellowish cream/beige.

Nobody will ever know, except for you. It'll be fine.

 

[Leeward Rail]

Hatch bottom in cream/beige

Hatch top in white

 

[fred1diver]

nice job

 

[Doug4bass]

Wow.....just gorgeous.

 

[Leeward Rail]

T'was ever thus.
Nobody will ever know, except for you. It'll be fine.

Me... and the forum... and google search indexer....

 

[Leeward Rail]

nice job

Wow.....just gorgeous.

Thanks for the compliments !

The hatch repair itself worked out as well as I could have hoped.
The gelcoat turned out not bad, but not great.
You can't tell from the photos but both sides have "orange peel".

The bottom, which had slight orange peel, is acceptable IMO, due to the fact it has a textured surface already.
The top, IMO needs to be wet sanded and buffed in the smooth areas around the edges.

I assume it should flow out and end up shiny, so I assume I got the viscosity wrong.

I used Preval sprayers to apply it, just like @Gene Neill did for his hatch repair: Sliding hatch "lips" cracking
I used a waxed white gelcoat available from the local marina store, which is sold in a "bush on" viscosity.
Having never done this before, I thinned the tinted gelcoat with styrene, simply by eye.
(I had called the manufacturer to get some advice but they had never used it with Preval sprayers before, so could only give me rough guidelines)


The weather wasn't much help.
The bottom was sprayed in 27C (80 F) and 78% humidity
The top was sprayed in the evening after a 33C (90 F) day.
The instructions said I should have 30 mins of working time at 24C (75 F) with 10 drops of MEKP per ounce of gelcoat.
In both cases, the gel coat in the sprayer was well past working time, before I could spray the whole Preval bottle.

When tinting the bottom gelcoat, I thinned it before tinting it.
Initially, I stupidly used a plastic fork to stir the gelcoat.
The plastic tub I was using, was ok, but the plastic fork got soft and the plastic tines fell off.
I had to quickly strain the gelcoat through a paint filter to remove the plastic bits.


The fumes from this stuff can't be understated.
Acetone to wipe down the hatch before applying gelcoat
Styrene to thin the gelcoat
The gelcoat itself.
I was spraying it outside, about 25 feet away our patio, while wearing a respirator mask.
The fumes were so bad that my wife went inside the house.
Don't even think about doing this without the appropriate mask.