Yo

I recently cut out a hatch in the aft deck of my plywood guillemot S&G using a jig saw. The gap left by the saw cut was comfortably wide after re-sealing the edges with epoxy. I reckon you would have to go a long way overboard to close the gap with too much epoxy and if you did, you could sand it back.

I empathise about the traumas of cutting holes in your deck. After initially sea trialing my incomplete kayak it seemed criminally-retro to cut out the hatch and make the kayak no longer sea-worthy.

The concept of bulkhead and hatch building seemed time consuming and fiddly to an impulsive impatient person, such as myself. However, in reality it was not so traumatic and didn't take very long at all. Now that I have completed the hatch/bulkhead challenge I am older, wiser and potentially my gear will be drier for it. The hatch is pretty cool too. If you go for the name brand Leidy lid system (internal bungee retainers) the hatch will be close to invisible from any distance. So on reflection the whole experience wasn't so bad after all - go for it!

Good luck

Pete