Kayak - Construction journal

Coaming

	Ok... here's the cockpit opening. I cut out the glass cloth with a knife, and sanded the borders. As I had to apply epoxy to the surface, I couldn't transfer the complete drawing before.

So I have to reposition the design, and with carbon paper I transferred the drawing...

	... on prepositioned paper tape. At the same time, I re-checked the outline of the opening, which seems to need a couple of mm of adjustment.

Again, I used a cutter to remove the inner part of the drawing, which is where the wood strips will be glued to the deck. I didn't follow the line exactly, as I had decided before to narrow the cockpit a cm at each side.

	The tense moment - the first two pieces of wood, already sanded at the correct angles to fit.

I glued them with a drop of a glue gun to the deck, and with wood glue to their neightbours.

	Once started, the fitting advances quickly - measure, sand, glue, drop of plastic, and next... Here, the next piece will be special - it'll be the first to be glued on top of the deck.

As this one has to be part inside, part on top, it has a rather complicated form.

	And on we go... The transition inside/top isn't even noticeable.

Finally, arriving at the back of the cockpit, it's necessary to adjust the width of a couple of strips to make them fit (and maybe also the angle).

	This is how it looks from the front.

The next day, I applied a couple of strands of fibreglass removed from cloth, all around. The resin applied was absorbed, as planned, in between the wood and the deck to reinforce the coaming. The strands also help, and will ease the application of the cloth later.

Continues with coaming - upper part.

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