: The goop sticks to the gasket material, and you dig the gasket out
: afterwards. Yeah, it seems a little primitive, but the idea is
: to get the cloth to lay very precisely, kind of a poor man's
: vacuum forming.

: I like to go inboard just a little, to give the hatch lid something
: hard to rest on that's at the exact level of the deck so the
: hatches will lay truly flush. I say that so convincingly, but
: the sad truth of the matter is, I have yet to make hatches that
: lay really exactly flush. I am getting better at making them
: watertight, though, and that's all I really care about.

Excellent. Thanks for your reply. I emailed Vaclav too, and he kindly responded almost immediately. He added that it is worth pasting the thin gasket with some wax to help pry it out.

How cool is email and the internet eh!

Regards, Ian