: I'm assuming that both sides of the deck should be glassed BEFORE I
: make the hatch cutouts. If that's the case, my question is....
: do the edges of the hatch covers ever get cloth or are they just
: protected with epoxy resin. If the edges do get wrapped in
: cloth, when in the process does this happen?

Some plywood-built designs don't use glass on both sides of the deck. Some don't use glass at all! In both cases the only protection the wood gets is paint, varnish or epoxy. It seems to work OK.

With wood strip designs which are reinforced on the inside with ribs rather than glass (not many of these around), you would just glass the outside and then cut out the hatches.

Some builders will assemble the deck and hull as one unit before removing the building forms. They jsut glass the outside, cut the cockpit and hatch openings, and then apply the interior glass by working through these openings. It is messy, but it gets the job done. And, it shows that you CAN cut the hatches before you glass the inside.

But if you can work on both sides easily, you'll do a better job, and do it faster, if you get the glass over the entire area, and then cut your hatches after it has hardened. If you have a lot of curvature on the deck you might want to glass the inside, then epoxy-glue in some crosswise supports to maintain the curvature of the hatch cover.

If you do a neat job cutting the hatch with a sabresaw blade, the gap between the hatch and the deck will be the same as the thickness of the sawblade. Not very thick. A little sanding to smooth the rough edges of the cut will still leave a pretty thin gap. If you were to try and glass the edge of the deck and the edge of the hatch lid, you could easily make your hatch too big to fit. As it is, a couple coats of epoxy resin on both edges will go a long way toward filling that gap.

Put a strip of masking tape on the deck side to keep off runs from the epoxy you apply to the edges. First coat is light to seal the pores. You'll have a lot of endgrain to seal as you've cut through all those strips. Don't try to give it all it will take. Just enough to cover it once. If it all seems to soak in and look dry, that's great. Second coat won't soak in, but builds up to give a protective edge. Tint that one if you want with a a pinch of laser printer toner or lock graphite.

While many try to disguise the gap around the hatch lid, others tint the epoxy they use on the edges to form an accent stripe.

Hope this helps

PGJ