Hi Todd;

Yes, Vaclav's "lip" method has some real appeal - - Simple, quick, and elegant. That's why I went that way . . . ;-)

Once you've layed up 6 layers of cloth on anything (kayak sized) in one pass, you'll find out it is a job, with a capital "J." Essentially an hour of solid non-stop work. I would not recommend trying it in confined quarters, i.e., inside an assembled kayak. Possible, but it won't be fun at all. However . . .

What about temporarily pulling your deck to shape with strapping tape (the stuff with the fibers in it), and laying the hatch rim up like we stripper folk do? Remember, once the hatch rim has cured, you generally affix it after the hull and deck are joined (Does not work with round hatches of course, it has to fit through the hole!). It has a life of its own, and simply has to match the contour of the deck at that location.

Pause for Cause - Here's the proper way to do the layup, it produces excellent results when building up layers of cloth like the hatch rims (This is copy-and-save info, passed down from generation to generation [g]). Thanks for passing it "down" to me, young Dan, sorry for modifying it:

(1) Lay down some freezer paper, plastic side up on your work table and tape it down. I used the backing from the "Contact" paper used to provide the release for the layup instead in this case.

(2) Mix your epoxy and spill it around the paper you just layed down. This slows down the cure, and gives you plenty of working time.

(3) Take your pre-cut strips of glass cloth (remember to make a bunch of strips beforehand!) and place 2 or 3 on the paper. Use a squeegee to wet and remove excess resin from the strips - Press and drag the tool across the strips to get out most of the resin, then use the edge of the tool to pick up a corner of the strip where you can pick it up with your (gloved) hand.

(4) Place it in position on the layup and smooth it with your fingers (wearing gloves, of course!) until you are satisfied. Repeat until 6 (or whatever) layers are in place. This technique encourages a very nice layup protocol.

DO NOT attempt to wet the glass strips with a brush, roller, or whatnot as you apply them - This is a recipe for disaster, get them thoroughly wetted out and squeegeed of excess resin before application and put them in place manually - - Trust me on this one. It works slick.

Hope this helps, Best Regards, Spidey