Hi Spidey,

I am not that far with my kayak. I am about 40% done with stripping the hull. I have seen some samples from "Clean Seal" (www.cleanseal.com) which we use for cabinet sealing at work. I plan on trying a small piece to see if it works for me. I plan on making a deeper channel and using a ~ rectangular hollow seal.

I don't think that it will be easy to create a perfectly flush head. It comes down to sorting out what compression I can achieve with the internal bungees and implement it when I design the recess for the seal.

In terms of your approach, you may also consider trying the following:

Use a 1/8 weather strip and attach to your hatch a thin bulge (~1x1mm rounded). This thin strip would push only on a small portion of your seal and should require less force than compressing the entire seal. It is typically much easier to seal on a small area. I have see something similar from Joe.

I have also seen weather stripping attached to either side (Deck and Hatch cover).

I am planning to use some carbon fiber fabric on the inside of the hatch cover and on the inside of the deck to ensure that I get as little deformation when I cut out the cover. This may be very conservative, but it may help also over time to keep the same shape.

Check out the above website and let me know what you think.

Andreas

: Hi Andreas;

: I have to believe you are right, in that I'm experiencing compression
: problems. It doesn't seem intuitively possible, in that I can squeeze the
: foam between my fingers, and with incredibly light pressure make it as
: thin as paper. As I recall, my channel is 1/8" deep and the
: weatherstrip 1/4" thick. Perhaps I can locate some 3/16" in the
: same closed cell form, and I'd only have to compress it 33%. Then again, I
: might be able to use some form of hollow channel seal, although the
: channel is rectangular in cross section. Any comments?

: Best Regards, Spidey