Interested in the clearance you allowed for the Nautolex, how you secured everything on the back side of the deck/hatches, hinge selection, and just overall design/tips/tricks. Keep up the great work!
None* of it is field-proven yet (well, the stern casting deck/engine cover with same hatch design has seen some water time) so these are all just what felt good to me!
For clearances - a brief disclaimer that I have a tendency to pursue overly tight tolerances that gets me in trouble occasionally. These are *snug* (haven't had any problems with these, but haven't tested them extensively either)
Nautolex is 3/64 thick, so a double-layer is 3/32. 4 layers is 3/16. I've mostly been taking a kerf off of the edges after cutting the hatches out, so the original kerf has been my clearance on the corners I guess.
Hinges are 316 stainless with a 3/32 pin diameter and .174 knuckle diameter. I've been taking 1/4 in off on the hinge side, which I guess (doing the math now) is 1/16 over the hinge size so really clearances are almost 0.
Probably too tight, but they do open and close fine.
Decking is nautolex over 1/4 in closed cell carpet pad/anti-fatigue mat, which is the main reason I'm making all of my hatches instead of just dropping in a tempress. That padding feels sooo good underfoot and is an absolute luxury.
On the backside I built a support frame with mostly 1/16 aluminum angle and a few 1x1 square tube vertical supports. I've used 1/8 in a few places that need extra rigidity, but 1/16 is just so much quicker to work with when I can make most cuts with just a tin snips.
I (will in this case, as I haven't yet done it in the bow) dry-fit, drill through where my mounting points are gonna be, pull the deck piece, install riv-nuts in the frame, then refit the deck and snug it down. Rivnuts take longer on install but give a nice solid fit plus are easilt removed/reinstalled if I need to remove in the future.
I think the 3/4" pin mounts are perfect for casting seats with the 11" post and up front I used the offset post. The nice thing about those bases are they're flat and you could move the seats when/where they're needed. Also in all reality they could be used underway WITHOUT the post if positioned close enough to the front of the casting deck. Those solid welded on 3/4" solid steel pin with heavy spring won't snap off without the leverage of a post.
