Re: Curvature of aft hatc

Posted by Laszlo on May 22, 2007

Kim,

I'm a little confused here. Your thread title is about the aft hatch, but now you're talking about the foredeck curvature. The foredeck on a Chesapeake is definitely more curved than the rear deck, especially on the LT models, so depending on which hatch you're really concerned about there may or may not be a problem. So unless you've already gotten the answer you need from CLC's phone support, please let us know which hatch you actually are concerned with here.

As far as why you may have received hatch frames which don't match your deck curvature - the frames are cut by a computer-controlled cutter which is ridiculously accurate, so unless CLC accidentally sent you the wrong frames (not likely), they'll be the correct curve as the boat was designed. The problem is that since the rest of the boat is hand-shaped by individual builders, there may be a difference between the designed and actual deck curves, causing the frames not to match.

This is not anybody's fault. It's caused by normal variations in the plywood, the tightness of builders' stitches, the exact placement of bulkheads, the builders' planing technique when shaping the shear clamps, the builders' sawhorses, the humidity on assembly day, etc. It's just the result of the wide variation in the final assembly conditions that you get in any kit (boat or other). As a result, the frames' ideal curves may not match the reality of the assembled deck.

I'm sure what you're actually interested in is what to do about it. First, we need to know exactly how bad the problem is. If the curves are only slightly off, the weather stripping will handle that with no problem. If it turns out that it's badly off, it's possible to do what Garland mentioned and use a heat gun to remove the ribs and reshape them. That's why we could use some more info from you. Specifically, which hatch (fore or aft), how bad is the curve mismatch and are you sure that you used the correct frames for the correct hatch? Let us know.

Laszlo

In Response to: Curvature of aft hatch by Kim on May 21, 2007

Replies:

• Re: Curvature of aft hatc by Kim on May 22, 2007
  • Re: Curvature of aft hatc by Kim on May 22, 2007