This post covers the past 2 days.

First I shaped one side of the right strake hatch door hinge spacer for a better contour flow of the top side of the door in relation to the strake surface.

I then taped up the aft side of the inside right strake hatch door (pic 1), wetted out peel ply along the edge of the inside door and then installed the door and weighed it down (pic 2).

With the taped and peel plied door (aft side) in place, I then laid up a 4-ply BID tape that will be the aft side flange when it cures.

After cleaning up the inboard glassed edge of the left strake door (pic 1), I then did pretty much the same thing with taping the edge, pre-wetting out strips of peel ply along the door in prep of the aft side flange layup (pic 2).

Which I did next (sorry, no internal pic).  Here’s the the left strake hatch door the following day when I removed the weight that secured it in place.

Here we have the left strake hatch door removed, and the cured, pre-trimmed aft side flange layup (peel ply pulled).

And a shot of it after it was trimmed and cleaned up.

Here we have the same thing on the right side, pre-trimmed cured aft flange layup (pic 1) and then a shot of the cured front side flange layup later in the day (pic 2)… this forward side was by far the most difficult flange layup I did on these strake hatches.

Since I kept the original strake skin piece on the left side as my door, I made a decision last night to keep the perimeter edge of the door the same stock thickness as the skin.  This made laying up the forward side flange significantly easier since it was simply laid up on the bottom side of the pre-existing perimeter strake-side skin.

I made a cardboard template of the forward strake-side overhang to create what I would need for a flange, then used the template to cut 4 plies of BID.  I then prepregged the BID (pic 1), and wet it out.  As well as again taping up the forward edge of the inside door and adding wetted out peel ply (pic 2).

This time however I was completely able to layup the flange from the hatch opening vs. having to snake my arm inside via the outboard rib.

Once the left strake forward flange BID was laid up, I then mounted the strake hatch door…

Closed it up and then added peel ply to the underside of the flange layup.

I’ll also note that my double-button Hartwell latch (left side of pic) that I ordered off of eBay arrived this afternoon.  While the button diameters are the same, the thickness of the buttons are different: the new buttons on the latch for the left hatch door are 1/8″ thick while the buttons for the right side strake hatch are 0.08″ thick (right side of pic).

I’ll continue to work what I can tomorrow to get this bird ready for primer and paint.

Pressing forward!