Bizarro Hatch Lamination

Posted by Laszlo on Jun 25, 2004

I've been looking at the instructions for hatch making and am sorely puzzled by the strips of fiberglass between the stiffeners and the hatch undersides.

It ends up as an inside-out composite sandwich - wood, glass, wood. This puts the limp, low compression high tensile strength material in between the stiff, high compression material. That is, the glass is in the neutral axis and contributes nothing but weight.

The hatch & stiffener end up making an arched t-beam. This is a very strong and stiff structural shape. The glass is totally redundant and serves only to soak up epoxy.

If the top of the hatch were also glassed, then you'd have a glass-wood-glass composite forming the top of the t-beam. This would make more sense, but the instructions say nothing about glassing the top. And if you did do this, it'd make more sense to completely glass the hatch underside.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

BTW, the footrest glass makes perfect sense. That forms a composite structure with the outer glass and hull. And even if it didn't, it acts as a rip-stop reinforcement for the footrest bolts (through-holes - yuch!. Run away, run away!)

Thanks for any enlightenment,

Laszlo

Replies:

• Re: Bizarro Hatch Laminat by Dennis Rioux on Jun 25, 2004
  • Agree w/ Dennis by Kurt Maurer on Jun 25, 2004
• Re: Bizarro Hatch Laminat by Kurt Maurer on Jun 25, 2004
  • Re: Bizarro Hatch Laminat by Joe Lombardo on Jun 25, 2004
• mea culpa by LeeG on Jun 25, 2004
  • Re: mea culpa by Laszlo on Jun 25, 2004
    • Um, Laszlo... by Kurt Maurer on Jun 25, 2004
  • Re: mea culpa by Tony Calvert on Jun 25, 2004
    • Re: mea culpa by LeeG on Jun 25, 2004
      • Re: mea culpa by Dennis Rioux on Jun 25, 2004
        • Re: mea culpa by LeeG on Jun 26, 2004
  • Bizarro.... by George on Jun 25, 2004
    • Re: Bizarro.... by LeeG on Jun 25, 2004
    • Re: Bizarro.... by Laszlo on Jun 27, 2004
      • no way by LeeG on Jul 1, 2004