The Coaming and Other Stuff.

With the outside glassed the next job was to build the coaming. After giving the edge of the opening in the deck a final clean up I started putting the vertical riser strips in place. These are pieces of spare deck strips about 50mm long glued in place one at a time. Starting at the centre front the first strip was glued in place with hot melt glue and then the next strip was glued to it with PVA glue and held in place with hot melt glue. This strip by strip process continued until the half way point was reached. Then the second half was done working from the centre back. The final strip on either side needed to be shaped to fill the gap on either side. Here are the first few strips in place.

It took a couple of hours but here's what it all looked like. The top edge was trimmed and the outside sanded smooth.

Masking tape in place ready for fibre-glass (bias cut strips of 4 ounce cloth) to be added.

With fibre-glass done.

The excess cloth which overlapped the masking tape was cut with a sharp utility knife and removed with the masking tape. Next morning the excess cloth was trimmed at the top of the risers. The coaming rim was made from 9 x 2mm thick laminations which were put in place over a layer of plastic wrapping film. Once they were in place and correctly aligned the clamps were removed in sections and the top surface of the laminations painted with epoxy heating the strips before and after the epoxy is applied. The clamps were replaced with extras and the next section done. A gap was left at the front of the opening.

All done, lots of clamps!

Next morning the lip was removed, laid on the bench and the underside sanded smooth before applying a layer of cloth.

 

Next day the excess cloth was trimmed off , the edges of the lip cleaned up and then the lip was put back in place. With the height checked and the lip eyeballed for fairness the lip was spot glued with CA glue every 25mm or so. Again lots of clamps while doing this.

The ends at the front were cut off and tidied up with a plane. Nine short strips were clamped in place and flooded with low viscosity CA glue. The advantage of CA glue is that a squirt with accelerator make it set instantly so work can continue.

Here's a photo of the completed coaming.

The inside of the hull and deck can now be fibre-glassed. I did the hull first to get some practice laying cloth on the concave surfaces.  It looks a bit blotchy but I think it will be OK.

Before the inside of the deck can be covered the coaming was covered in bias cut strips. This was tricky! The inside and top of the coaming were painted with resin and the cloth strips put in place against the risers. once in place the cloth was saturated, first on the vertical surface of the risers, then across the top of the lip and finally over the edge and under the lip. That was the tricky bit but eventually it was done. The deck was turned over and the lower edge of the strips of cloth wet down on the inside surface of the hull. After that glassing the inside of the hull was relatively easy. The next photo was taken the following day. It looks OK but there are blobs of epoxy where it ran down the inside of the riser, easy to clean off when it is hard.

While working on the above there was quite a lot of waiting time so I worked on shaping the seat. The bulk of the work was done with the angle grinder using an abrasive disk called a "Holey Galahad". The disk is shaped like half a doughnut and can be seen in this photo of the seat.

Shaping the inside of the seat was relatively easy, the surface could be checked for smoothness with the hand and shape with the backside. Shaping the outside is more difficult, the hand can feel lumps but the the thickness is more difficult. Closed the edges finger and thumb can gauge the thickness but towards the centre it is harder. I'm still working on it.

I will mount the seat and foot braces on sliders on a rail fixed to the bottom of the boat. The rail will be T shaped with holes for adjustment every 50mm. Here's the current state of the rail. The holes were drilled 16mm without breaking through, then countersunk and filled with epoxy thickened with a mixture of graphite and micro-fibres. When the resin is hard the top surface will be cleaned up and the holes redrilled 12mm right through.

Last job today was the end pours in the deck. These are blocks of epoxy inside the ends of the deck to provide reinforcing where holes for rope handles will be. I shaped a dam from an old ice cream container  and taped it in place. The space behind it was filled with thickened epoxy. Needless to say, one of the dams leaked causing a sticky mess! I scooped up the epoxy and clean the surface, put the dam back wit more tape and poured the epoxy back in. This time it's holding, I hope!

The stern.

The bow, this is the one that leaked: obviously, it's harder to get at!