While I didn't build a hard dodger myself, I had one built by a very good
craftsman in Ft. Lauderdale. He took the existing bimini stainless and had
it welded in place so that it had the exact same form as the cloth one. He
used a 1" honeycomb material for the coring and overlaid it with 1/8"
fiberglass sheet on the top and on the bottom. The whole thing was faired
and them Awlgripped.
Everyone who has seen it has asked where I had it made as it's by far
better than anything available commercially, such as a WaveStopper. I will
point out that he said that he would never build another one! :-)
Here's a link to a photo of it:
http://www.geoffschultz.org/Ebay/hard_dodger.jpg
-- Geoff
www.GeoffSchultz.org