And if so, what thickness did you go for? I’ve currently got a 12 mm fiberglass laminated plywood hatch and although I’ve sanded it plenty I’m sure it’s still not flat and would prefer a hatch that’s perfectly flat and thinner as my current hatch is slightly higher than the rest of my board
I’ve had similar issues, don’t think that a stainless hatch is a good option. High weight and cost, you might as well do a thinner plywood/carbon hatch since you need some thickness to get it stiff enough.
If you want it really flat you could press it against a thicker piece of float glass while the composite is curing, this will give you within microns of flatness. I don’t think you need that though since the meeting surface rarely needs to be this flat😃
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CFK is a better option, better weight vs strenght. Depending on the size you also need to make sure you install it properly, if you bend it when installing it, it doesn’t matter what it is made from. I built a screw hatch from CFK with 3D printed threads, works great so far.
There is a guy from the german speaking efoil telegram group who is developping a hinged hatch for diys builds. Depends where you’re located wether
this would be an option. Not sure if he is in this forum.
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Link to this?
20char
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What kind of seal do you guys use on your Diy hatches? I was looking for an apropriate marine seal with alot of flex yesterday but all i found was common D_Style or O_Style self adhesive door Seals. They all had terrible reviews highlighting that they come wrinkly/disformed because of the packaging and on most of them you can tell right away that the adhesive strip is garbage and really not applied that well. Im looking for a seal that can be glued into an infinite strip+adhesive tape and has decent amount of pressure so the hatch will stay dry. Im planning to make my hatch out of Glass fiber reinforced 10mm-12mm Plywood/Multiplex stiffened with carbon rods or carbon ribs so it doesnt flex and is “step” safe.
Keeping an eye on this thread lol. Thanks for bringing it up!
Curious, would a 10mm neoprene or closed structure cellrubber -gasket not work? Like shore A 20? Surely your mainbox would need to have a matching O-ring grove for it. But then you can attach it to the box with small drops of CA glue to keep it in place, the hatch compressing it will do the rest…
I didnt test any of the types yet. I looked at marine seals and the seals on commercial boards and they differ quite alot. Some use a round seal, D-Seals Double D with a Lip etc… and others use a seal with just kind of a bendable lip. I thought about using a cellrubber tube aswell. Just imbedding the lower 1/4 of the tube in a groove on the hatch or the board itself. But it could soak up the glue (especially where you join the ends together as it is porous) or due to the non hollow design just be way too stiff and wont compress nicely. The best bet would be a quality marine seal with the appropiate stiffness glued onto the hatch/board with some marine sealant or special glue made for neoprene/rubber/silicone/epdm (depending on the seal used).
I also looked at weatherstripping but most are the same chinese garbage i mentioned in my first reply. Badly applied adhesive, non genuine faked 3m logo on the adhesive, deformed, very bad quality, extreme shrinkage on temperature Delta etc. (This is all based on user reviews on many different styles of seals.
The closest that i found was a round 12 or 14mm hollow seal that is meant to be pressed in place on a 3-4mm lip. I thought about using that and embedding the press fitted part with low viscosity epoxy or silicone. But if it fails, my board would need massive rework, which i try to stay away from.
I didnt find a good match for my project yet.
I assume the sealing strip should have good resistance (but not so much it becomes too stiff) and most importantly good bounceback and pressure to be good’n tight.
Seems hard to even find something that doesnt ship crooked and messed up from the get go which is a shame.
I am really sorry for my rant and kind of abusing this thread just now but this is the quality issue that im speaking of. Most of them on Amazon or Ebay appear to have very similar branding and they often come unusable and deformed like this. Even the more expensive ones. Just doesnt seem to be good seals for our application.
I get your point indeed. For other types of waterproofing a lid an o-gasket works real well (it only gets a bit stiff at the joining ends) as long as the lid has sufficient bolting points evenly compressing 2 (semi) rigid platforms. It deforms to shape to an airtight compartment. However, these lids are not intended to be opened/closed multiple times daily. I will use this method to waterproof a vesc-box passively cooled on top of the mast.
The hatch remains a mystery to me as well. Will for sure make the battery unit and wire connections submersible on their own and then start worrying about the hatch gasket.
Speaking of D-shaped door seals - I’m using one off Amazon - maybe the same one from the picture in this thread. I can’t believe it but it works perfectly. The adhesive is funny - seems very weak at first but after a day or so it actually cures into a strong bond.