once again i must ask the v20 gods

hey Ridge, today i layed in the modeling clay and that was a job in itself, then i sprayed in a wax release. Tomorrow i will stop and pick up a Preval sprayer to shoot the PVA then i hope to have enough time to gelcoat. so yes i am moving along. I have one question though. strick mentioned that he does one layer of fiberglass tape over the modeling clay, do you think i can cut strips from my 3/4 mat or do i have to use the tape. thanks john
 
I think his tape is just mat tape. You can definitely cut the mat into strips for that. Any woven fabric there and you would be able to see the weave in the reflection of the gelcoat (print through). The roller type bubble poppers will have to be used lightly on the clay like you said. Have a brush ready to do some light dabbing. Oh and :pic:, Please.
 
once again

well i put a coat of unwaxed gelcoat on the mold today then i ran 2 inch strips of fiberglass tape and resin around the entire inside corner of mold over the molding clay . next i layed in one layer of 1 1/2 oz mat with resin ,had to stop thier because i had work to do that actually pays. i really wanted to put on another layer of glass just so i wouldn't have to sand between coats. It was hard to do but not as hard as i thought it might be. i will say i am so glad i bought the rollers to roll out the resin, that would have been a disaster, i took pics of the whole thing so far but left the camera at work or i would have tried to post them here tonight, i'll try and post them tomorrow night beacause as we all know:thre: lol
 
With the help of Ridge and after many pm's Here are some pics of the build of my new 36x36 gas tank hatch. one is of the mold built from MDF. then youl see the modeling clay used to soften the corners and radius's. then layup using 2 layers of mat Tomorrow iwill be adding 5x5 pieces of plywood core with a mix of cabosil and resin and more mat . also spray wax and PVA was used thanks to the Preval sprayer, the mold was then gelcoated prior to layup. you can see the old starboard hatch in the background.
I


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Nice work. Your filleting work looks clean. Radius looks big, 1/4"? I am anxious to see how the gelcoat is gonna turn out. That is the one step I never tried. :clap:
 
Ridge, actually i made the radius even tighter after the picture was taken, it looked to be a bit to wide . i ran out of resin and got bored so i popped one of the side pieces of the mold off, it came rite off i couldnt believe it
 
So I am very intrigued about making molds,and this gives me motivation to try making a couple hatches. So let me try to understand, you build a jig or mold then round off inside corners with molding clay then spray with a release wax. You then roll out gel coat and then make your glass layup? Not trying to hijack thread please pm with details.
 
hatch

So i finished the build of my Hatch today. now here i am like a kid at christmas time , cant wait to get this thing out of the mold so i'm now working with the mold removal wedge and nothing and i mean nothing is happening at all. After about an hour i get the Hatch out , only problem is 90 percent of the MDF is still conected to it and i thought i used enough mold release but that spray wax the guy sold me must not have worked. Now here i am taking the MDF down layer by layer 1/32 nd of an inch at a time with my Dewalt power planer. Just wanted to shoot my self. so after three hours of the Planer the palm sander and 4 different wood chisels i got it down to the gelcoat but not without a little bit of damage. i did expect that it would need some work but not the 2 gouges i put in it! The point of the story is hand rub the wax into the mold. other than that the hatch came out fantastic could not be more pleased
 
hatch

Spare, i did not know that one , I'll keep it in mind thanks. But next time i will be using Formica for my mold material so that wont happen again. I just finished gelcoating the hatch this morning and it looks good ! I us a textured roller that is made for applying contact cement,it has a slight stipple to it and lays down a very nice pattern. Ridge i really enjoyed our conversation yesterday as well, thanks again. I will post pics of the finished hatch this weekend.
 
Ok so here is the finished product, 1st as you can see is the core. then of the mold removing disaster, scratches from the dewalt power planer that i had to use to remove the MDF, then used poly filler to repair, then re gelcoated with stippled roller used for applying contact cement.







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It turned out great. It should offer more grip and strength than the Starboard.
AND The coring was done right IMO. Leaving the core just shy of the outside edge is a strength multiplier. The glass that gets put over that rounded edge and back up the lip forms a much more robust design. Another advantage is upon screwing the lid down around the perimeter, no screws will be into the core. You just want to make sure the hatch face is thick enough in that area to be able to easily countersink the screw heads. That is where Whaler has screwed up on their lid and hatch design IMO. They run the core to the outside edge and then proceed to fix brass nuts in place to be fancy then the back side of every lid is glassed over and gelcoated. They rely on caulk around the fasteners to keep the water away from the core, same holds true with keeping water away from the foam sandwich construction in all the thru hulls.
It looks nice and foo foo having a slick gelcoated back on all the hatches like the Whaler lids but several lids failed at about the 6 year mark due to their construction techniques. I built my hatches like yours and they are already older than that ,still perfect.
 
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The hatch fit like a glove , how funny is it that 3 weeks ago i had no clue how to do this and today i have a costom built hatch . now i start on my helm seat box with tackle storage :head:
 
can anyone tell me how wellcraft origionaly fastened these gas tank hatches . Was it countersinking the screw heads or using SS finish washers. Thanks
 
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