Saturday, May 9, 2015

Hatch part II

OK, on with the show!  The first, second, third, and 150th things I did were filling in all these little squares with foam.  Because of the necessary scoring and bending, it would have been easier if the inner skin was in first, but I couldn't think of how to do that with the hatch attached to the trailer ... you know, without literally living inside the galley for two days.  Maybe I lack commitment, but that seemed like too extreme an option:


Tedious, and sticky work.  But, it progresses:


After a week's worth of evenings doing that, I was done!  Hooray.  I'd rather eat a bowl of broken glass than vacuum up any more foam dust.  Time for the main part of the bottom skin: the hatch is a little longer than 5 feet, so we'll need to do a join and a small extra piece.  However, since the hinge will be in the way of all that, we'll need to do that once we take it off.

Here's the glue-up.  This was a tough one, as the hatch had developed a slight middle bow.  This made the edges prone to buckling, and it was a real pain to tack them all down.  Drywall screws helped, but even so, there were a couple of spots that popped up after the screws came out:


Distressing at first, but no major problem.  More glue, and more screws to clamp.  It's a nice looking hatch, once I got my mind away from the microscopic problems.  The small bare spot is just visible at the top:


It even opens!  I'll be honest, it would be quite upsetting if it didn't.  Shown braced with a stick, but the final build will eventually need gas springs to guard against the very real possibility of decapitation:


Off it comes for more work.  The outer skin got finished without event.  The real task moving forward will be making sure the inner skin doesn't distort the hatch too much during gluing.  A skew would prevent it from fitting the hole squarely, and too much spring-back would cause sealing problems:


Here we are, with the requisite gobs of glue cleaned up, all ready for the inside skin:


Once this is built, it will get sanded and filled like the outer roof.  It'll then get reattached, and I'll fiddle with the seal gaps to make sure everything works.  It will stay on while I build the doors, then everything will get finished in pieces.

Summertime camping?  Yes please!  But it's getting warm out already, and I still have work to do!

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