Building a Teardrop Hatch

This part can be a little hairy. I remember it so from the first build. The galley hatch construction is more art than science, despite how much you measure everything. You get a bunch of weird curves and end-angles on the hatch ribs that you sort of shrug at and say, "I'll fix it later".

That said, there are the hatch ribs cut and ready. Despite using the first rib as a template, they all come out a little bit different due to using a jigsaw to cut those arcs. Jigsaws wander a bit. Below, I clamped them all together and took a belt sander to the arcs to smooth out some of the differences.

I made a Home Depot trip today to pick up some poplar 1" x 2" spars to frame out the hatch. I also grabbed a miter box, which you'll see below, since my miter saw is currently elsewhere. I cut the spars for the top and bottom of the hatch assembly (56 1/2" wide) with the miter box and assembled the outer frame of the hatch.

Don't forget to countersink for the screws on the sides, otherwise you'll get some splitting of the plywood. I'm going to let this set and dry overnight and continue shortly with the rest of the ribs. I've just ordered a set of tail lights that will be placed on the hatch once it's completed here. I mention this because this impacts the placement of the hatch ribs closest to the outside left and right ribs. I'm building for about an eight inch mounting location of the tail light.

There were some other sundry activities as well. I added another coat of polyurethane to the drawer faces and the galley doors. Those are almost done. I have this cryptic map of their progress with fractional values.

I also bored out more holes for wiring. Below, we have the egress hole for the raceway wiring which must somehow get down underneath the teardrop floor and move toward the front. The next photo is a hole in the floor which allows this action to happen. Obviously there will be a sealing opportunity here to keep the road out of the cabin.

I apologize for the second non-focused photo, cell cameras do whatever they want. I'll run some form of conduit through the cabin near the end of this journey.

I'm really excited about the progress very recently. Much more to come soon, I hope.

[g]