If n' When II -- Coaming

Click on the photos for a larger, uncropped version

Early in the "thinking" stage of this project, long before any wood was cut, I had decided that I wanted to build a carbon fiber coaming lip as described by Vaclav Stejskal of One Ocean Kayaks. Vaclav put together a book covering his methods and techniques. With both the coaming and the hatch seals, I've used his techniques as a basis and then modified to work with other features I wanted to include. For example, I wanted to use the technique described in Nick Schade's book, The Strip-Built Sea Kayak for the vertical portion of the coaming.

I started out by cutting out the hole in the cockpit recess to match the cockpit on my Dagger Outlaw. I'd like to be able to use the same skirt on both boats. At this point, the deck has been glassed on the outside, but not yet removed from the forms.

I cut a whole bunch of little short strips, and cut out a jig piece to keep the height above the deck consistent as all the small pieces are glued to the deck. The first piece on each side of the cockpit was glued with hot glue. The pieces extend down into the cockpit about a 1/4 below the deck. This was important later so that the carbon fiber coaming lip didn't get stuck to the deck before its time.

Once the first strip was in place, I glued and clamped strips to both sides of it. By doing this on both sides of the cockpit, I was able to have four separate areas being built up. By the time I'd glued and clamped the fourth strip, I could return to the first spot and add more. I also discovered I could easily put on two pieces at a time before reinstalling the clamp. This helped it move along fairly rapidly.

After the speed with which strips went in place on the hull and deck, building the coaming seemed to take forever. I would add a few strips before going to work, and add some more each evening while working on other projects. I suppose it took 3 or 4 days to get all the itty-bitty pieces in place.

I applied a fillet of thickened epoxy (using fumed silica) and then a strip of bias cut 6 oz. glass to tie the vertical strips to the deck. The thickened epoxy doesn't have the clarity of the glass, but it won't show much under the coaming rim. The secret to getting the glass to lay in place smoothly was to cut the material on the bias. It was amazing how easy this piece went in place. Fact is, I started to get a little cocky!

Once the epoxy cured, the excess glass was trimmed off, and the area was sanded. The outside of the strips will be exposed once the lip is created, but the inside of the "riser" will be hidden under carbon fiber.

I masked off the area about the coaming, and then hot glued florist's foam to the tape. I'd already cut the form to match the height of the risers. This foam around the riser will form the mold for the lip. I used this foam because it was cheap and very easy to sand.

Once the foam was sanded to shape, I covered all of it with masking tape, making sure that I applied the tape smoothly. Any wrinkles will be transmitted to the coaming ring. The masking tape goes down the inside of the risers, and loops back under the deck to make sure there is no possiblity of a place where epoxy could get to the risers and glue the coaming lip in place prematurely.

After the tape was in place all around the form, I glued Saran Wrap over the tape. The Saran Wrap serves as the parting surface for the epoxy after the coaming lip is cured. Once again, it is relatively important to avoid wrinkles as much as possible.

I thought I was going to be able to lay up 8 layers of bias cut strips (5 glass, 3 carbon fiber) all in one go, but had a problem with it starting to pull away from the inside when I got to the fourth layer, so I grabbed my trusty Saran Wrap, and clamped the spots that were lifting. The next day I finished the remaining layers.

For some reason, I don't have any pictures of the raw product. It really looks pretty ratty when it's first removed from the forms (no small trick in itself...) but looks good once it is trimmed with a very fine tooth blade in the saber saw. At this point, the rim is glued to the risers with thickened epoxy. Later, thigh braces were fabricated which reinforce the front of the rim, and bias cut glass was wrapped around the remaining rim, going from the top outside edge, over and down the inside of the rim, and wrapping back under the deck. There is no way it's going anywhere!