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Bi-Fold Hatch Project
Below you will see a photograph of the bi-fold hatch from the Freedom Row. After 30+ years in the weather
she had a little wear and tear in the way of rot that had been caused by rain leaking through the plexiglass and running
down the inside of the hatch. You will also notice the main hatch in the background that was going through a test
fitting while I was working on the bi-fold hatch.
Below is close up of the bi-fold hatch clearly showing the rotted areas. I used a drill
with a wood auger bit to grind out all of the rotted areas. It took a couple of hours because you really have to get
down in there good to make sure there isn't any rot left.
This photo shows the drill bit I used to clean out the rotted wood.
Now comes the fun part. Once you have gotten all your rotted wood cleaned out, Use some acetone to help evaporate
the moisture make sure you vacuum all the lose particles of dust and wood out of the holes. Tape off all the areas that
might have cracks that would allow the epoxy to flow out of the holes left by the removal of rot. Mix up a batch of
epoxy with slow hardener and no additives and saturate the interior of your holes. After that's done you will need to
make a new batch of epoxy unless your first batch was larger than you needed for saturating the holes.
In the new batch of epoxy still with slow hardener mix in a large amount of teak or mahogany dust from previous projects.
Oh did I mention you should keep all the sanding and cutting dust from any work you do on good woods. Mix this batch
so that it is very thick, not quite where it will stand up on its own. Then fill your holes. We used slow hardener
because this is where it gets tricky. Over the next couple of hours you will want to find a way to vibrate the
hatch to shake the air bubles out of it. You can lay a drill on the hatch with a lopsided bit of some sort so that
it gives you a good vibration. Make sure you leave just alittle above your holes so it has room to expand or contract
as the bubbles come out of it.
Wait at least 24 hours and check what you have the epoxy should be very hard and have the color appearance of the wood
dust you used. Take off all your tape and sand down the epoxy areas and you should get a relatively close match to your
surrounding wood. It won't have the same grain but it will never rot out again. After you get the epoxy wood mix
sanded down sand the rest of the wood with a light 150-200 grit sandpaper. Then varnish it like you normally would.
I use Cetol. Your hatch should then look pretty good and unless you tell people about the repair noone usually notices
it.
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