| The Custom Latches | ||
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| When one decides to makes custom hatches for the boat, one also must consider the method of latching. Because " battening down the hatches " is so important in rough weather, they must be strong and reliable. I thought of several ways to accomplish this from snapdown buckles to threaded knobs, but none were convenient plus out of the way plus strong. Each had it's weakness. | |
| The solution came when I was
designing the latches for the doors actually. In the video to the right, a
3/4 turn pushes a cam over the tab, thus reaching a max press on the
tab. A half turn with this same design on the hatches would be just as convenient, and requires no stop pin. |
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| The photo above shows
2 prototypes.
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| <Incomplete |
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| A July 21st 2007 |
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| After some smoothing and polishing they look presentable. I could have taken them to a high polish but hey, they'll be covered with sticky fingerprints most of the time anyway so why bother? |