Sealing My Replacement Lewmar Hatches

[YPSILANTI]

I am in the process of replacing my Lewmar hatches. I live in South Africa and our Rand US Dollar exchange rate is 16 to 1 Dollar. The imported components are thus prohibitively expensive. We thus need to be resourceful. I have sourced and arranged for the hatches to be laser cut from Cast Acrylic as per the advice on the forum. My questions are as follows:
1. Do I have to buy the rubber seals from Lewmar or can I seal the new hatches into the frames without their rubber seals?
2. Research suggests that I should seal using VHB 3M tape and then Sika flex 295 UV with the primer GE SG-4000. My concern is that the tape will be inside the frame and as the hatch touches the frame, it will catch and bond without being able to be correctly positioned and seated. If I can indeed proceed without the Lewmar rubber seals, should I thus not exclude the tape and only use the Primer and Sika?
3. We can only source 5mm tinted acrylic which is too thin. I require the 10 mm which is clear and is not available locally tinted. I am thus considering having a tint film that is sourced from the USA that is applied internally but is of the non-stick type. Has anyone done that?

Any advice, referrals or useful links will be appreciated. Thank you. Regards Mike

[Zach]

Hi Mike,

As far as the seals go, are you talking about between the opening hatch and the frame?

To bond the acrylic into the hatch, I've used sikaflex and primer... Not a big deal to do, just make sure you tape up everything well, and once the goo starts to drag leave well enough alone on your cleanup.

I used denatured alcohol to clean up the hatch frames, and some old credit cards to scrape up the old sealant.

No idea on the tinted film.

Cheers,

Zach

[double u]

Lewmar Ocean hatch: acrylic bonded with neutral cure (!!!) silicone
Low Profile & Medium Profile hatches: will probably require the genuine seal. otherwise leakage is very likely. genuine seal is glued to acrylic

[YPSILANTI]

I appreciate the informative replies.

[Privilege]

I too have used Sika 295 UV with great results. I usually remove the masking tape soon after the application. The 295 also sticks to the tape and when it dries, it comes off without the straight edge.

As far as tinting goes, be careful as acrylic 'breathes' and can form bubbles under the tint as the temperature falls and rises. (I have no first-hand experience of this, just repeating what I have read). I also read recently on the forum, someone's idea where they covered their hatches with the same covering that is used on bus windows for advertisements. You can see out of it OK and can have any colour or pattern on the outside. You might be able to find off-cuts at a sign shop. It also has little holes in it which may alleviate the potential problem of trapped air forming bubbles.