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Project Log:  Sunday, January 18, 2015

The caning dried overnight, nice and drum-tight, and I trimmed the excess from around the edges of the spline.  I'd get back to the final details to hang this door in the near future.


For now, I concentrated on the lazarette hatch construction, anxious to continue with the next steps.  After removing the laminate panel from its "mold", I lightly water-washed both sides, then trimmed the panel to create square edges, removing the ragged ends of the lamination (shown before cutting here).


With some paper, I made a rough template of the molded lip surrounding the hatch opening, which demarked the basic size reference for the new hatch.   The hatch would eventually feature a lip that would extend over this raised section, and I had to ensure that the top of the hatch was large enough to overhang this lip sufficiently, while still fitting within the space overall.  By stretching the paper across the opening, I could make a rubbing of the edges of the raised molding, which allowed me to cut the template to an appropriate size.

         

After confirming the template's fit, I transferred it to a piece of cardboard, extending its dimensions by about 1/4" on all sides to allow the overhang necessary for the new locker lid.  After test-fitting the cardboard template, ensuring that it fit as desired, I transferred the shape to my new fiberglass panel, and cut it out.  Afterwards, I lightly sanded both sides of the new lid top, to remove the gloss from the mold and prepare both sides for the additional work ahead.  At the same time, I sanded several pieces of prefabricated 1/8" thick fiberglass that I cut into 1" strips from which to form the overhanging edges of the locker lid.

         

         

To begin the edge, I bent the thin strips of fiberglass around the inverted locker lid, which I weighted down flat on a piece of plastic on my bench.  To secure the bent strips at the edge, I hot-glued little clamping/support blocks in place, dry-fitting everything before securing the strips with epoxy adhesive where they met the edge of the hatch lid along the curved back edge and the straight forward edge.

         

The two forward rounded corners of the hatch featured a radius that was too tight to bend the prefab material around, so I'd deal with these areas separately later, along with additional construction steps including coring the hatch lid for stiffness.

         
 

Total Time Today:  2.75 Hours

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