I replace my companionway hatchboard with Lexan that I bought on eBay.
Did the cutting and machining myself. It was easy to work with. This
is who I bought it from:
http://stores.ebay.com/8020-Inc-Gara...nels_Polycarb_


How thick are your companionway slides? I don't see anything listed over
about 1/3 inch. I'd like to do something similar but my last boat had
1/2 inch and my current boat has 3/4 inch sliders.

wrote
How thick are your companionway slides? I don't see anything listed over
about 1/3 inch. I'd like to do something similar but my last boat had
1/2 inch and my current boat has 3/4 inch sliders.

3/8" (Gloucester 20)

This is what I used:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=330071745689

wrote:
I replace my companionway hatchboard with Lexan that I bought on eBay.

Did the cutting and machining myself. It was easy to work with. This
is who I bought it from:

http://stores.ebay.com/8020-Inc-Gara...nels_Polycarb_



How thick are your companionway slides? I don't see anything listed over
about 1/3 inch. I'd like to do something similar but my last boat had
1/2 inch and my current boat has 3/4 inch sliders.

It's difficult to find good suppliers of
Plexiglass (acrylic sheet) and Lexan
(Polycarbonate sheet) on the internet. Not
impossible, but difficult.

After several fruitless searches on the internet
and Ebay it seemed that I could not find exactly
what I wanted, or it was at what seemed like a
high price and the shipping made it even worse.

I then picked up the local Austin yellow pages,
started calling industrial plastic suppliers, and
found two local suppliers that had what I wanted
in stock. They could also order arylic and
polycarbonate in colors and thicknesses I never
dreamed existed including opaque and solid colors.
The only rub was that special orders required a
minimum of either 4'x4' or 4'x8' depending on the
material. That said, their stock prices were
better than any I found on the internet.

They had clear acylic in stock in thickness
ranging from 1/16" all the way up to 1-1/4".

Based on my experiences, I'd say that if you live
close to a fairly large city, get out the yellow
pages and look under "Plastic".

YMMV,

Don W.

On Wed, 07 Mar 2007 11:23:36 -0600, wrote:


I replace my companionway hatchboard with Lexan that I bought on eBay.
Did the cutting and machining myself. It was easy to work with. This
is who I bought it from:
http://stores.ebay.com/8020-Inc-Gara...nels_Polycarb_


How thick are your companionway slides? I don't see anything listed over
about 1/3 inch. I'd like to do something similar but my last boat had
1/2 inch and my current boat has 3/4 inch sliders.

You can always glue strips to the edges of the new boards to build up
the thickness. Using the thin material for the body of the boards
will make them much lighter...


--
Peter Bennett, VE7CEI
peterbb4 (at) interchange.ubc.ca
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