One the initial build I used Lexel, Vulkem polyurethane, and siliconized acrylic caulk. The first two between surfaces, with the latter added where the bead would show, since it's makes a much nicer bead than the other two. All of them performed perfectly. This time around I did without the Vulkem, using Lexel everywhere it wouldn't be seen. As with the original build, I dabbed Lexel under every screw head for the hinge and edge trim. The somewhat sloppy mess you can see in the lowest picture on the left, is Lexel I tried to smooth after it squirted out from under the hurricane hinge. Mineral oil on your finger helps a lot. The picture is the end result, with aluminum sides.
When I first built the teardrop, wanting to be fancy, I cut the hurricane hinge to the same length as the body, and made these fancy little end caps. That may have been a mistake, since the leak I had was at one end of the hurricane hinge.
This time I was wiser, and followed the traditional advice of leaving the hinge one inch longer on each side. To keep it from sliding when the hatch is open, I added the fender washer on each side. It's screwed to an aluminum block underneath. Another important thing I learned was to leave the edge molding vinyl trim caps off, to allow any water that get's below it to drain away. That may have caused my leak. Another result of leaving the caps off (except at the top of the hatch) was that water that pooled up on the roof, behind the hinge, now has a way to easily drain, without a cap being in the way.
A difficult change I made was the edge trim over the sides of the galley hatch. That's the piece going up in all three photos above. My originals were the dead soft stuff from Grant Whipp, but this time I found trim with a longer skirt. 15/16ths I think, compared to 5/8th of an inch. The only kind I could locally obtain was painted black, and not the least bit soft of course. Long story short, each piece needed 20+ minutes of annealing with a MAPP torch to soften it up enough to bend at a 3 foot radius. Then, to make matters worse, the only way I could get the black paint off was with a wire wheel, so those pieces now have a different look to them. However, the longer skirt on the edge completely covers up the hatch side weather strip, which the older edge did not. Also, instead of rivets securing the edge trip to the hatch, I used Chicago nuts, sometimes called sex nuts, which worked perfectly, and allowing me to recess the heads, providing a flat surface to stick the weather strip.
Danny 
