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| Day 203 |
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Put in 4 hatches |
| Today was one
of those days that you wish every day was like! We
accomplished a lot and went all day and part of the
evening. ( The nice weather helps! ) The hatch lips are 2" stainless bar bent with rounded corners and will be welded right into the cabin top like the aft one was. One advantage of steel is no worry about the seating of the hatch frame because there isn't one! |
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I recalibrated my measurements and bent all 4 hatch frames for the forward half of the boat. Using a bender requires some scrap bar to test the offset ie. if you want a bend at 18" then the alignment point is 19 3/4" with this size of roller. | |
With some practice, accuracy of 1/16" can be achieved! A really good thing when the hatches "squareness" is extremely important. The front hatch is going to be round on the leading edge to match the front of the cabin. One of the perks of making your own! If it were square over the sail locker, it would be too small to be of any use. Putting it on the deck would have been too small also in our opinion, and too far forward over the chain locker. It has been a contraversial issue for ages but yay! I got my way on that :) The hatchlid for this one "may" be a bit tricky though... The hatches in front of the pilothouse are small (16x18) because of interior considerations and footage area around the mast. Alignment of these hatches struck me just before they were to be cut out. Should they follow the side of the cabin or the intercostals or center line? I ran into the house and looked at my collection of "other peoples boats" pics and noticed that pretty much all of the hatches were in line with the centerline. Monkey see monkey do. Thinking back, they would have looked real dumb inside and out if they were any other way. The difference inside the boat is amazing! We can see again! No artificial light can replace the awsome power of our closest star. That is why the tint on these hatches will be amber not grey. I would like as much light as possible even when they are closed. Transparent with no tint would just look tacky from the outside probably. Another advantage of these frames is they have stiffened the cabintop up considerably, as well as enabled us to straighten some bulges that have been plaguing the cabintop near the front. The large hatchlids will have a couple of bars going across for safety as they are pretty huge and need some protection from heavy objects falling on them. We must remember to raise the bars at least 1/2" or the "glass" won't be able to go in. Even though we welded all of these frames in, Gena was still able to finish the septic tank hatch ( bottom pic ) What a complex thing it is! (Note to self: Pry bar is still down in there !)
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 Small hatches over galley and dining area
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Day 203:
9 hours - Put in four hatch frames and finished septic tank
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 Marine Radios Sandy's CB Shoppe |
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