the doors are a bit heavy to where I would not want them flopping around because it would probably damage the hinge. Plus I figured it would be quite inconvenient to have to hold the door open, so I decided to install lid supports. I could have went with the nice pneumatic ones but I figured the less moving parts the better, plus its not like these are going to be opened frequently, so I went with the old tried and true spring supports. However... nothing is easy....
Mounting the support to the frame was easy as I drilled two holes at the bottom edge of the frame and backed them with nylock nuts. the problem was mounting the support to the door. I didn't want to drill through the doors to mount the support to the door, nor did I want to cheat it over a bit and screw into the plywood stiffener as I want to leave it 100% encapsulated, so I decided to make a pad out of spiked tee nuts that I could glass to the cover.
I started by making a template out of starboard of the exact hole spacing I would need and fasten the tee nuts from underneath. I filled the remaining threads with modeling clay to keep the resin out. I then added as many layers of 2408 biaxial necessary to cover the spikes. I think it was 4 or 5 layers. The next day after the resin set I cut the pads to shape on a band saw, shaped it and touched it up on a belt sander, mixed some vinyester resin, coated a piece of 2408 the same size as the pad and clamped it in place for 24 hours. I then gel coated over it to finish it up.
You have to be conscious of keeping the threads clean, so after I clamped it I waxed the appropriate screw and screwed it into the tee to chase out any resin. A few times in the first two hours of kicking off I would give the screws a 1/2 turn back and forth a few times to make sure the coast was clear.
I think the hatch is really finished this time... no really im serious!
