Our 1998 H260 is new to us, but we almost immediately saw the need to get to the storage under the cabin seats without disrupting passengers who were sitting, or going through the hassle of removing seat cushions and access covers.

There didnt seem to be a project on HOW regarding this, although there was discussion by other owners of the same interest, so we thought wed undertake it.

We found two teak doors and frames - actually doors and frames for DRAWERS, not doors on-line (Fore and Aft Marine, I think). These were meant to attach to drawer units that would slide in and out, but we wanted doors.

The local hardware said they could come up with articulated hinges that, with a little routing out, would work with drawer units.

With that we placed our order and waited for the pieces to arrive.

Teak cabinet doors under the cabin seats

When the pieces arrived we laid the hinges out and immediately saw that we needed to route a small groove (1/4W x 1W x 3/8D) in the inside bottom of each door. As you can see in the picture, the wider part of the hinge attached to the frame and the longer rectangular part to the door. The hinge point between them was recessed into the groove we routed out.

Fastening hinges to the doors and frames

With the dooor closed the hinge still sat neatly in the groove. We also found that the hinges had a neat feature of a plastic spool and spring wire that the hinge pushed against when closed.

This helps keep the door closed, instead of having to add more hardware to the door and frame.

Door closed

With the grooves cut and hinges installed we completed the assembly and made sure it functioned properly.

The only disappointing point was that installing one of the hinges cracked some of the thin teak that was left on the face of one of the doors. We were very careful after that.

Door and frame assembly

Next, the part we dreaded the most - cutting holes for the doors. We placed the door assemblies against the seat walls, checked for levelness and then squareness with the floor and upper edges of the seat mouldings.

We traced many pencil lines that we often wiped clean and redrawn until we thought we had the positions we wanted, true and level.

After drilling 1/4 guide holes in the four corners (you can see one in the upper left of this one) we got the electric jig saw out and started cutting. Within moments we burnt up/melted two blades. At the hardware I explained why we needed more blades and they recommended using wood blades (which have an offset in the blade to remove material and cool the blade), rather than metal blades. Probably common sense to others, but I learned something that day.

With new blades in hand we got the port opening cut quickly. We placed a door frame in the hole to verify it fit, and found we still had some trimming to do. In the end we actually used a file to take off some rough edges, too.

We werent sure how well the frames would hold against the openings with just adhesive, so I also drilled four small holes in the opening that I could use later to put screws into. You can barely make out two of those holes, one on the center left side, and one on the center bottom.

Cutting the door holes

The starboard opening was more of a challenge. On the cabin floor, forward of the sole, the fiberglass is moulded into a rise that made for a close fit for the door assembly. We tried to locate the opening aftward. What we didnt realize, because we didnt examine closely enough, was that the supporting fiberglass from the sink (which you see on the right of the picture) flares out and somewhat forward. Uh-oh.

Cutting the starboard opening

The right side of the starboard opening was too far aft and resulted in gouging into the fiberglass and wood framing supporting the galley sink. Not big gouging, and with some fiberglass epoxy I was able to re-seal it, but if made for some very difficult sawing.

Another mistake, not shown, is that the water line from the forward fresh water tank is routed in non-flexible tubing under the forward edge of the starboard seat. When we were drawing the cutting lines I noticed this, and put some spacers in between the line and the seat wall to hold the line away so it wouldnt get cut by the blade. No luck.

The spacers, with the vibration from the saw, fell out as I was cutting the top edge and the saw punctured a neat line about 1 long down the tube. That will need to be replaced, but Im planning on putting a fresh water pump in to eliminate the hand pumps, so Ill replace the line at that time. Fortunately, the fresh water tank was low so no water came out when I was cutting.

A little gouging

We talked a lot about how to attached the door frames in the openings. We finally settled on a black silicone-based adhesive from the hardware. We had discussed white 5200, but we didnt want to get any on the teak and have to attempt cleaning it off.

With the black adhesive the excess was easily wiped off and the little that did get on the teak blended very well with the grain. You can see a little of the black adhesive on the right edge of the frame in this picture.

Before it was cured we were able to remove the remainder on the fiberglass using an old rag.

Fitting the doors

As with the port side, the starboard side went in very easily. The adhesive cleaned up nicely, and (with one of us holding the frame) we gently tested the finished product. Both doors functioned great.

Twenty-four hours later we checked the strength of the adhesive, and we have doors and frames that will last many years. The doors are hinged at their bases, and open from the tops, making it easy to access everything under the seats, within about 3 of the doors.

The curvature of the forward seats makes long doors like these impossible. Hope you find this helpful. E-mail me if you have any questions.

Fair winds, Mike

The starboard door