The Cal29 forward hatch rebuild

[tommays]

I was going to by a new hatch until i found out this one is special in that it was made to fit the curve in the deck



And at 1200 dollars its worth some elbow grease





So about 250 dollars should cover a new lens and the paint as the good paint is expensive BUT it looks great and holds up to saltwater

[SVCarolena]

I look forward to following this thread - our cast Bomar hatches need lenses and we were going to replace due to the condition of the frames, which need to be refinished. Of course, ours are standard sizes so the cost of replacement is around $500 per hatch.

[tommays]

Well

The price is going down as the local place Action Anodizing will do them in black IF i can get all the parts off without breaking anything

And hand them to them with all the paint removed which should not be and issue as i own a bead blasting cabinet

[tommays]

Well the hatch came apart without breaking anything which is good

After taking to the factory they powder coat this model as anodizing was hit and miss on the cast hatch's SO white powered coat is looking like the way to go

[Waltthesalt]

Great
I repalced mine a few years back with new but cheap one I found at the WEST Marine surplus store in Oakland. I had to make a SS adaptor plate however. One thing I found was that going that way I had to do a lot of fiberglass build-up between the headliner and the deck so that the hatch would have something solid to mount on. Your solution looks like it may avoid that.
It's great to see Cal 29 info on the site... seems we don't get no respect in most sailing forums.

[tommays]

A bit brighter and whiter



The magic of the water-jet cutter :rockon



Waiting for the 795 to setup

[tommays]

This is the Jig i made to cut and match the deck (its test wood )





And the hatch sitting on the sample part NOW to make on in teak

[tommays]

Well that was a lot of work

[eherlihy]

Where did you get the glass for the hatch? Who did the cutting??

Do you plan to trim out the interior around the hatch? Not that the SS acorns are not nice...

[tommays]

I used smoked lexan because Bomar says LEXAN

As people get crazy about the lexan VS cast acrylic i go with the people who built it

I got a piece from Mcmaster 85805K54 and had the local waterjet place cut it as i have a huge amount of other work done they throw me a bone on my boat parts


Its staying like this as the 1970 boats were done RAW