replacing acrylic Goiot hatch

[lgaggie96]

I'm looking at replacing the acrylic on my Goiot hatch. I see that Home depot carries acrylic sheets and Lexan. Is there a marine grade acrylic and Lexan or will the Home Depot sheet do??

[Faster]

Latest issue of Good Old Boat includes an article on this job... check it out.

[mitiempo]

Use acrylic (plexiglass) not Lexan (polycarbonate). Your hatch had acrylic originally.

[SloopJonB]

This was covered fairly extensively on another thread quite recently - lots of good info makes it worth looking up.

[lgaggie96]

Thanks for the info. I intend to use the acrylic for the hatch, but was wondering if the home depot acrylic is suitable or do you have to order a special marine grade acrylic?

[mitiempo]

There is no such thing as "marine grade". There are different grades though.

[Maine Sail]

Originally Posted by lgaggie96

Thanks for the info. I intend to use the acrylic for the hatch, but was wondering if the home depot acrylic is suitable or do you have to order a special marine grade acrylic?

You want a cast acrylic and you won't generally find it at Home Depot. Cyro Acrylite is what many of the hatch builders use... The Goiot hatches used a metric thickness and most shops do not stock this. Select Plastics can properly re-build your hatch or sell you correct acrylic..

[hellosailor]

gaggle, the stuff at the big box stores is simply cheap stuff for glazing screen doors.

On a boat, you want UV-resistant scratch-resistant glazing, whether that's cast or sheet formed being a whole other argument. Each plastic maker (GE, Rohm & Haas, PPG, others) typically offers at least two dozen grades of plastic often more than twice that many.

Look at their line to see what you want, then try to find a commercial supplier who stocks it--so you don't have to buy an entire large sheet. Hardware stores just won't have the good stuff, it costs too much for them to stock or sell.

[rugosa]

[QUOTE=hellosailor;791562]gaggle, the stuff at the big box stores is simply cheap stuff for glazing screen doors.

See if you can get commercial supplier to bore the holes too. If you use the wrong type of bit you might crack the piece. It's best done on a drill press, not with a hand drill.

[SloopJonB]

[QUOTE=rugosa;791586]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

gaggle, the stuff at the big box stores is simply cheap stuff for glazing screen doors.

See if you can get commercial supplier to bore the holes too. If you use the wrong type of bit you might crack the piece. It's best done on a drill press, not with a hand drill.

Clamp the old and new pieces together and drill through the holes in the old piece. Use spur bits and you'll have no trouble. Let the bit cut, don't push hard on it.