Trim the thing a bit more and glue some solid mahogany edgetrim all
the way around? One-inch thick stock should be more than enough to
allow you to trim away the beveling you added.
If I did this, I think I'd make the edge trim an eighth of an inch
thicker than the plywood (protruding "out") in order to emphasize the
"panel-door" look. (Assuming that it's not *too* difficult to
reposition the hatch retaining setup.)
A cabinetmaker would have done it this way to start with in order to
conceal the ugly plywood endgrain and otherwise disguise the fact
that the "panel" is plywood.
The hatch could look magnificent. ("Uhh, yeah! I planned it that
way!").
Start by making a paper pattern of the finished size, then reduce the
pattern by the width of the edge-trim.
> 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?
>
>
-----------
Rich Duffy
P-14 #362
Kula, Hawaii