New Vendor - Wells Fiberglass LLC

[RickK]

Welcome Jim Wells and son Jimmy to our site.
They specialize in gutters and hatch lids, which until now, we've tried to make ourselves (my attempt failed to seal). Jim has many rebuilds and recreations to his name, is also a valued member here and could be a valuable asset for answering questions for us.

[DAYTRIP]

Thanks Rick! I will post some content on here soon. To the members I am am happy to both supply you with hatch and gutters or guide you thru the process of making them if you want to take a swing at it. I developed these for my own projects and the current molds are the 4th generation. These were made from plugs that were cnc cut from a block of melamine then faired to a 2000 grit finish.

They do save a ton of work and they seal very well. I love boat projects and as a south Florida native I love aquasports having grown up on them.

[mshugg]

Are these the same hatches thatJoel at Gulfstream Composites used to sell?

[DAYTRIP]

They are. We supplied Joel from the time he opened till he closed. I have seen your project. Came out great

[DAYTRIP]

This is a 22-2 that we recently did a deck for. This is a friend’s boat that had a new deck installed incorrectly unfortunately. Coosa was used and no glass was done on underside. We replaced the deck with Airex T92.100. I have used a lot of foam cores and the Airex is nice to work with together with good properties. I prefer plywood as a core because you gain strength from the core were as foam and coosa cores add very little to the section properties.

First thing we did after demo was level the hull side to side at the chine in the stern and forward 12’. I do it in two locations as the hulls will twist. On my bertram I had 2” of twist in 12’ when it was first blocked up so it needs to be checked and it is easy with a water level. On this 222 it had no twist though.  Next we set a 12’ straight edge on the stringers to find the high and low points. We then leveled to the high points to avoid massive grinding. In the low areas we used plastic shims that are 1/16” to identify how much of an issue we had to fill or deal with. Again the lowest area was in the stern where the stringers taper down about 3/4”. In the other areas we mark the number of shims required so that when it gets epoxied down we can place the correct number in the correct spot



We fabricated the deck panels out of the boat. Made sheets 12’x8’ by glueing the Airex together then glassing both sides with two skins of 1700.

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From there we measured the deck width every foot from the transom then laid that out on the panels so that we could cut them. We were able to get the aft 12’ in the boat without removing the cap which was nice!

[mshugg]

They are. We supplied Joel from the time he opened till he closed. I have seen your project. Came out great

Thanks.  It definitely saves time to have quality ready made hatches.

[Mwar410]

Definitely got me thinking about using them. I want rod lockers in the deck along he console and I’m not really looking forward to attempting them.

[DAYTRIP]

Hey Mwar410, 

We made the 14x46 for rod storage and fishbox use. On the 222 we just did the deck on we used 3 of them. To continue on how we approached the project, once the deck was cut to shape we located and cut the gutter openings in the boat to be sure everything worked as planned! We glued the gutters into the deck using epoxy/ wood flour paste then once cured we removed and flipped the deck over.

To get a little more clearance above the waterline we added a piece of core on in the area that contacts the stringers. For conduit chases the owner split 3” pvc and we glassed that under the deck. All the gutters were glassed in for the underside as well. Really nice doing this out of the boat!

[Ulysses485]

Daytrip,

I am interested in hearing more about these gutters and hatchcovers. Can you drill them out for hardware etc.? Please send me a PM.

Thank You

Ulysses

[RickK]

I think those discussions can take place above board but pricing should stay in PM.

[DAYTRIP]

Hi Ulysses485,

The lids are typically hinged either with piano hinges in the gap between the lid and the gutter. Other option is a flush mount hinge. We can add recesses for surface mount hinges. The website has some examples. Happy to text with you anytime. 561-719-0317

[Mwar410]

Yeah Jim, I was checking those out, how many rods and how did you drain them? Im Getting rid of my casting deck and replacing them with 2 of these Rod lockers along the console and extending the cap for an anchor locker.

[DAYTRIP]

Mwar,

On the 222 he used them as wet storage so they are basically bulkheaded but with limber holes for the water to drain. We are doing a 28 Bertram and he will use these for fishboxes so we used divinycell h60 as an insulation then will build a box in the hull. I typically glass a pvc fitting on that allows me to pipe and valve it to drain. on my Bertram stretch project I used pvc tubes thru the bulkheads to store pole spears or gaffs. I put two tubes in but you could squeez in three if need be.

[Mwar410]

I’ll have to do some figuring and designing, 2 rods wouldn’t be worth the effort and cost. It would need to be more like 4 in each, not sure here’s enough room between stringer and hull.

[DAYTRIP]

Yea it really depends on the width and depth of the space. I could have put 3-4 more in for my use but with reels on rods it needs some space between