Material for Cabin Doors

Chip S

Active Member
Jun 17, 2019
432
Bordentown, NJ
Boat Info
1993 Sea Ray 200 Overnighter
Engines
2023 Mercury 150 hp Four Stroke Outboard
I need to make cabin doors for my 1993 200 Overnighter. I was planning on using StarBoard. A friend of mine told me the thermal expansion of StarBoard is too much to use for doors. Can anyone confirm this? What would be a good material to use?
 
I used starboard to make a hatch on my Catalina many years ago. I did not have any issues while I owned it. I used standard woodworking tools to cut and route the edges. I used rivets for the hinges because I did not know the holding power of screws into HDPE, but it tooled like a standard softwood.
 
I used starboard to make the two part flip up top to the cabin entryway on my old boat and it was fantastic.
 
His comments probably relate more to your design of the doors. HDPE does expand but you just need to take that into your calculations. Can you share your design?
 
I've taken the measurements of the opening but haven't designed anything yet. Attached is a picture of the doors on Lony B's boat that is the same year and model as mine. I'm planning on making doors similar in design to his.
1993%20Sea%20Ray%20200%20OV%20Cabin%20Doors_zpsk9ssjmf1.jpg
 

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  • 1993 Sea Ray 200 OV Cabin Doors.jpg
    1993 Sea Ray 200 OV Cabin Doors.jpg
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The doors on my 94 are the same hinge design, except I lack the wood trim. The two sections, short/tall, have opposing rabbet joints on mine, so no gap between. That will give you the ability to leave expansion room.
 
StarBoard will work fine for that. I doubt thermal expansion would even come into play on narrow surface areas like that.
 
Rather than starboard you might consider using the plastic PVC based “wood” that is used for home trim. Azek is one of the brands. The plastic wood unlike starboard can be glued. Besides trim, pvc is available in sheet form as well.

West Systems magazine Epoxyworks ran an article a few years ago where they tested epoxy, pvc and wood. Their conclusion was that the pvc and wood bonded equally.

So there is no reason why you couldn’t use standard woodworking techniques to build the doors. If you rabbit the styles and rails and just glue the corners you will float the panel and mitigate distortion in the door structure. You’ll still have to consider expansion and contraction of the whole door, but thats easily done.

H
 
I found a set of cabin doors from a 1982 Sea Ray 260 Weekender on Craigslist. I'll have to cut down the doors since the 260 had bigger doors, but it shouldn't be too hard. I'll post pictures once I start the project.
 
You dado the inside frame pieces and they make little rubber spacers that fit in there to keep the panel tight as it needs to be about a 1/16" smaller than the opening to allow for expansion and contraction and the rubber allows for that while keeping the panels tight in the opening. Not allowing the clearance will split the frames at the joints in short time. Even using the same material for panel and frame you still need clearance and without the rubber spacers the panel rattles and moves around in the frame.
 

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