: Hi All,
: planning ahead from my glassing, Im hoping to fit valley hatches on
: the boat. I apologise now to the purists :-) I regularily paddle
: multi day trips in strong tidal open seas and need very very dry
: compartments, hence valley hatches.

: My question is how do you make the wooden base that glues under the
: deck for the rim to fit to. I know Jay Babina made a really
: beautiful one, featured in the Nicks book, but I cant get my
: head round how to fit it under the curved deck. And if you use
: layers of ply whats the best way to removing the steps between
: each layer.

: Q2, how do you cut a true circle/ or oval for that matter, in the
: curved deck.

: Theres probabily an easy answer, but I just cant think of it!!!!!!!

: Paul

Paul:

There are actually some of us who prefer the look of commercial hatches - especially me. I like how the black breaks up the, often, vast expance of wood - my apologies to the purists. I've made a S&G and a stripper in the past year and I elected to paint both of them.

There are two ways of recessing the hatch:

Heres one that will probably work best for your curved deck. It'a sctually pretty easy to do : http://justyakkin2.blogspot.ca/2012/03/black-pearl-project-hatching-matching.html

And here's another that is also easy but I only did it on a flat deck so I can't comment on a curved: http://justyakkin2.blogspot.ca/2011/02/all-decked-out-3rd-step.html