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Weather stripping thickness for flush hatches
I am looking at installing flush hatches on my Chesapeake 18 hybrid. Understanding that I need to add whatever the thickness of the weather stripping is to between the lip where the hatch seats to the underside of the deck so that from the outside everything is flush.
If I use 1/8" weather stripping, should I use 1/8" plywood as the added thickness between the underside of the deck and the lip for the hatch to bed onto?
Mike
2 replies:
RE: Weather stripping thickness for flush hatches
When the weatherstrip gets compressed they will also leak like crazy. They will probably leak some even before the weatherstrip compresses. The standard CLC hatches dont look as good, (especially on a hybrid) but in my experience they are much more watertight than flush hatches.
The forward flush hatch on my One Ocean Cirrus LT leaked so bad in waves that I finally caulked it shut with 3M 4200 because I never carried any gear up there anyway.
RE: Weather stripping thickness for flush hatches
» Submitted by Laszlo - Tue, 4/28/15 » 5:35 AM
Not quite. The weather stripping is compressed by the hatch, so that's the thickness you need to match - the compressed thickness. And just to make your life difficult, the amount of compression increases as the weather stripping gets older, so maintaining a perfect match over time, even if you do manage to get one, is very difficult.
Good luck,
Laszlo