Yes, that makes sense and is going to make things easier. I was concerned about the thickness of cloth being included in the gap. Thanks to you both.
My plan (at least at this moment) is to do flush hatches with internal bungees per Ross Leidy and probably the nylon web loops for pulls. Have considered rare earth magnets which I've used in furniture for door catches. Also have considered external bungees which I think look pretty cool. Lots of decisions!

Ian

: 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