The Hatchet Job

As I was saying...

...the hatchet job was looming - cutting out the hatches.

Oh boy, I was scared of cutting hexagonal hatches - into that very curved surface of the front deck in particular.

One wrong move could mess up many weeks of painstaking work. Of course, there was the option of not cutting hatches at all and I certainly gave this option serious consideration.

In the end though - if the job was done well - it really would look quite nice not to mention being practical.

Wouldn't you rather stuff lunch and sundry items into a hatch instead of having the errant apple and pretzels roll around in the cockpit whilst performing exotic Eskimo maneuvers?! Right, I thought so.

I talked to Joey and discussed tools.The manual called for use of a powered jig-saw... and I had purchased it - but found the use of it on the curved surface totally unnerving.  Joey recommended the small Japanese saw with the little tooth in front for the straight cuts and a bonsai saw for the curves.

For days I sat on my hands, made excuses, did other stuff and generally avoided any thought of cutting into my precious wood work.

Finally, I plucked up enough courage and took the plunge. I graphed the hexagon shapes on the hull, surrounded the shape with frog tape and grabbed saw and courage by the throat..

BEFORE

I followed Joey's recommendation and started on a straight line with the Japanese Beading Saw with Woodpecker Tooth. I ran the saw along a metal ruler to ensure that the initial scratch into the epoxy surface would be perfectly straight.

This technique proved to work quite well for all straight cuts, the tape on one side and the ruler on the other of a super-narrow slot.

AFTER - future hatch exhausted - resting behind

The curves were more of a challenge mostly because the Bonsai saw cuts a wider slot and therefore the transition was a bit awkward.

When it came to installing the hatch spacer and sill, I was particularly glad that I could work from both sides of the deck.

I doubt that I would have been able to accomplish a clean fillet between the sill assembly and the underside of the deck without seeing what I was doing.

It was really a mini fillet because I want to make sure I keep the boat at the 40 lb target weight.

Typically, kayak hatches have some type of webbing or bungee strap running over the top in order to hold it down and keep a seal with the sealing strip underneath.

In this case I opted for a closing mechanism that is entirely internal thereby avoiding the straps which would otherwise mar the lines of the design.

Essentially, the hatch will be pressed down by being attached to two bungees from underneath. It is a very elegant solution and with my deck design, I am glad that I'll be able to install that instead of the alternative.

Otherwise I might have foregone the hatch-job altogether :-)