Hi Spidey,

It is not surprising that you have problems with the weatherstrip. A 50% compression is quite high. This is the reason, why I ant to try hollow channel seals. You have seen them probably on Current Design kayaks and work quite well. If designed right, I would expect to get a very good seal with much lower forces.

Andreas

: Hi Mick;

: Your drawings (when you had a working FTP site ;-) were clear as a bell and
: very instructive. I am having a hard time envisioning what you are
: describing here. Probably my fault, not yours.

: What I can comment on is the hatch lip sealing design. Vaclav's design, which
: I used, provides for a lip that sets the hatch flush with the deck, and a
: deeper channel into which you set the weatherstrip. The channel depth is
: 50% the height of the weatherstrip, so that compression is not as severe,
: and that compression of the weatherstrip does not (in theory) affect the
: height of the hatch itself, as it is indexed by the solid fiberglass lip.

: Well, let me tell ya' . . .

: With just the fiberglass lips, my hatch was indeed flush. When I added the
: closed cell "very soft" weatherstrip, the hatch covers sit up
: about 1/16", and the pressure required to flush them to the deck is
: quite high - - It does look to provide a very tight seal (not water tested
: yet), the appearance is not too shabby, but yet I'm amazed at how such
: delicate foam weatherstrip can provide the resilience it does. I'm hoping
: that in time, they will eventually settle more into place, and drop the
: hatches truly flush. In any event, my point is that the weatherstrip
: channel is probably a given for any future hatch designs, instead of
: depending on simply squishing weatherstripping to the design height.

: When are you going to have graphical support available again . . . ?

: Spidey