Gluing Up the Companionway Hatch Top

October 22, 2019

With my October weekends scarce due to a number of commitments, and having already burned a couple weeks vacation for the refit work, I decided to take some week nights here and there to progress the project.  Tonight, I made way out to the shop to glue up the companionway hatch top.  I had already prepared the teak slats for the top, and with a fresh supply of epoxy arriving recently,  I got to work on the assembly.  

My first job tonight, after laying out some protecting plastic sheeting on the work table, was to knock down the rough edges on each of the slats.  Coming out of the planer, the slats had some rough areas that required a bit of cleaning up.  With 150-grit paper, I quickly knocked the edges down, and then placed them up on the work table after a quick wipe down with a solvent laden rag.  After all of the slats had been cleaned up, I came back for another, more thorough, wipe down with the solvent rag.  Teak holds a lot of natural oils which help to protect it in the marine environment, but this oil can also cause a bad epoxy resin bond if not first removed.  

With the slats cleaned up and their surface oils removed, I then mixed a small cup of epoxy resin to wet the surfaces to be glued up.  If this step is overlooked, then a a bad bond could result due to the wood grain "sucking up" the resin.  After each of the surfaces were wet out, I came back with another small batch of epoxy resin.  This go round, I mixed in some West System 406 colloidal silica as a filler for any uneven surfaces / voids.   

I swear there is a hatch top under that modern art installation.  I aligned the ends of the slats on one side, placed another layer of plastic sheeting over the teak slats, and then applied clamps on either end and one in the middle.  I then built up a few pieces of random stock on either end of the hatch top and placed a large panel over that.  On top of the panel, I applied weight to keep the hatch top in plane.  Tomorrow, I will come back and clean things up (epoxy squeeze out), and then prepare to glue the hatch top to the hatch frame.

Total Time Today: 1.25 hrs