Hatch rebuild

[cjandres6886]

Hello! My wife and I are re-building our hatch, but before diving in we wanted to reach out to the community and get feedback on our approach, and to get suggestions on any modifications we may need to make. The short version history is we have a benroy-style teardrop. The first hatch build was not done to the best craftmanship. The side gussets were not fabricated well enough to match the curve of the trailer side walls. Our “fix” was to add a few 1/8-inch aluminum strips to raise the hinge and align the hatch as best we could to the side wall curves. This helped, but the finished hatch never seated well on the top and sides. Also, the drip edge of the hatch didn’t extend beyond the edge of the trailer wall. Our theory is this: both of these issues prevented a good seal from occurring with the weatherstripping and allowed rain water in. I have included a few sketches below showing how our first build. Our plan is to do the second build per the benroy plans (images below), unless anyone here has any suggestions/reasons to deviate from them. Thanks in advance for your comments!

[woodywrkng]

I would make your hatch a bit sturdier than shown in the instructions, but not as sturdy as mine, since it's kinda too heavy. Also, DON'T use 1/4" plywood under the aluminum. Use 1/8th. I used 1/4 and it sprung the hatch just enough to cause me to reshape the sides to match.


The way I fine tuned the sides to match the hatch was to use 1/2" U shaped channel aluminum over the 1/2" sides. I carefully noted where there was a bit of extra gap between the weather strip and the U channel, raised the channel a bit on the sides, and shot some caulk into the nearest screw hole in the face of the channel. When the caulk hardened, I put the screw back in, and the channel stayed put. You can see the shiny aluminum channel on the galley sides here.