P19 workmanship. :-( argh.

Eric Johnson (ej@tx3.com)
Wed, 24 Mar 1999 15:39:39 -0800


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West Wight Potter Website at URL
http://www.lesbois.com/wwpotter/
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Well, I took my expensive piece of marine-grade mahogany plywood and put it
up against my old companionway door, backside-to-backside to prevent
scratching, and using a router, cut the profile of the old delaminating wood
into the new mahogany.

I went to test-fit the new piece on the boat. It didn't fit. not even close.
Took me a while to realize what happened - I basically made a mirror-image
of the original hatch.

NOW, it is perfectly reasonable to assume the profile of the hatch door to
be symmetrical. It is not :( mine is every bit of a half-inch higher on one
side (where it meets the sliding top) than the other.

Before you all yell "turn it over", i had already made the angled cuts where
the upper section meets the lower, so that isn't an option.

As far as I can tell, at time of manufacture, someone must have just
eyeballed the curve on either the hatchboard or the sliding hatch, and
transferred this asymmetric curve to the other piece.

I fear that now I've discovered this problem, even if i cut an identical
piece properly from a new piece of wood, I'll forever SEE the asymmetry that
I overlooked before. I'm thinking of just taking a piece of varnished solid
mahogany and screwing it across the back of the sliding hatch, to
essentially eliminate the arch in the back of the hatch, and cut the hatch
board straight across too.

I sure hope IM is building boats better these days.

Your thoughts?