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PhastBoat
05-22-2003, 08:20 AM
How would you guys go about making a race hatch for this boat from scratch?

Techno
05-22-2003, 10:52 PM
Some material and some bows.
Something that ends up like a convertable top. You get to remove it and fold it up or pop it in place.

If a hard mold then plywood for the stations/frames and covered with thin plywood for the shape. Like a wooden boat. Take into consideration whether it's a female or male mold and how much undersized if a male mold.

PhastBoat
05-22-2003, 10:58 PM
I would like to make a female mold out of wood, but have never done it before. Can you breifly explain the procedure. I kinda have an idea but was wondering how the epoxy does not bond to the wood mold?

CRMERC
05-23-2003, 12:11 AM
what i would do is cast one out of baltek (balsa core 3/8 or 1/2 inch) using a quick mold. It looks to me you would be working with fairly flat pannels so here is the plan. Go to home depo and buy white kitchen paneling back splash ( about ten bucks a sheet) the stuff is pretty smooth. Make a wood frame over the top of the area you want to cover. the wood frame is only required if their is going to be any bow or shape to your cover other wise you can lay this up on any flat surface ( table, cement floor). The paneling comes in 4' by 8' sheets, looks like one would be enough. First goes on the wax (mold release only not car wax) three of four coats. Next spray the whole surface with PVA (poly vinyll alcohol ) 2 coats first thin 2nd heavy let dry for an hour. remember silicone is not your freind NO car wax NO air borne wd40 or anything like that. Pic a color of gel that you want or you can go with a sraight white or black and paint it latter. You would probaly have hard time spraying gel so i would just use a 3" trim roller 1 thick coat. For best results let the gel set up for 24 hours. Now you can lay up your piece. You could go with epoxy but Im going to tell you to go with Polyester laminating resin. You are talking about a small piece that not going to weigh much and polyester is easy to work with and it cost about one third the price of epoxy, beside polyester is what the boat is made of . Lay up one layer of 3/4 oz mat the size and shape you are looking to make let it set up for a couple of hours. Make sure you have layed it up flat no bubbles or hairs sticking up, use 3"inch paint roller for this as well does a good job. Next layer is a little more tricky. first you lay out a second layer of 3/4 oz mat and then you coat the open side of the baltek with resin and press it into the wet layer of mat. From here i would fill the gap around the edges of the baltek with deck hull putty to leave a smooth trasition to the first two layers. Lay up one more coat of 3/4 oz mat over the back of the core and wait for 24 hours to set up. You can peel it off the paneling, and wash off the pva with warm water walah you have a smooth strong fairly light composit panel to work with. you can make edgeing or even put a smooth surface on the inside useing the same white paneling.

PhastBoat
05-23-2003, 07:37 AM
Thanks:D

PORT
07-21-2007, 12:14 PM
I know this post is a few years ago, but did you build it this way and were there any issues?
I want to build a hatch from my front seats to my well for my Sonic and appreciate any info.

Thanks