The Aft Deck and Coaming Recess.

The aft deck took less time than the fore deck because it was mostly wider strips.  To begin I marked and cut the edges where I wanted to add accent strips. While I was cutting these accent strips I also 

took out the 105x8mm offcuts from the wide board of Surinan Cedar - see post of March 28th below. These were run through the thicknesser to bring them down to 4.8mm. With that done I laid them out on the bench and selected the pattern I wanted for the aft deck and cut long enough pieces from each of them. These wide pieces were ripped into strips 32mm wide to use on the deck.

The edges of the deck were cleaned up with a plane and the accent strips glued to each edge. When this glue was dry I added another two narrow strips to each edge to proved a marging. Then onto the wider strips. The first two were laid along the centreline of the deck. Followed by more strips one either side until the deck was complete.













At this point it looks as if the boat is being built out of green tape!
















But it isn't. The grain pattern I was after is clearly visible.


















With the hull completely stripped it was time for the first scraping and sanding session. First scraping off the hot melt glue stitches and squeezed out PVA. Then the sanding. Starting with 60 grit on the random orbital sander and then going over the entire surface with a home made long board. With the deck done I turned the boat over and repeated the process on the bottom. This isn't very photogenic but here are a photo of the tools and the finished surface.

While I was doing the sanding I laid out and glued some strips to make the coaming recess. I drew the rough outline on a piece of scrap ply , covered it in clear plastic and the glued up the strips over it. When the glue dried I turned the whole piece over, scraped and sanded the surface and then covered it with 120 GSM fiberglass cloth. This was left for about 48 hours and then sanded using 80, 60 and 120 grit paper. Here,s the recess resting on top of the boat. The green tape was peeled off and the outside surface scraped and sanded.

I was nervous about the next stages which would involve fitting the coaming recess into the boat complicated by my wanting to put an accent strip between the hull and the recess panel.

After sleeping on the issues involved in doing this I woke early and went for a paddle on the river.

Here's the panel taped in place so I can reach inside and mark the edge of the hole - before adding the accent strip so there is a margin for error.

I added the accent strip in two laminations each about 2.5mm thick; any thicker and I couldn't get them round the sharper corners at the aft end (top of the photo) without steaming them. The strips are hoop pine and it doesn't steam nicely anyway. I wasn't game to try adding them both in the same glue up so did them in two sessions. The ends are overlapped in a scarph joint.

Then there was the long fiddly job of fitting the the recess into the hole. I don't think there is an easy way to do this and so crept up on the final fit with plane and sandpaper on a board.  Then glued in in place with the last of the green tape for a while. 

An hour with the scraper, block plane and 60 grit sand paper on a board the the jobs done. it isn't perfect but there is only one gap that needs a bit of filler - "bog" in Australia or "dookie-smutch" in the USA.

I think it turned out OK and I guess that it will become easier after another boat or two!

Next is more sanding over the whole hull getting ready for the outside fibre-glassing.