With the hull and deck joined internally, I started work on the cockpit and coaming. The plans from Rob Mack suggest that the coaming surround is made from a set of laminations, but I don't really have a ready source of the thin wood for the laminations and in the limited space of my garage I didn't want to construct a fairly bulky laminating jig either, so I went with the design from Nick Schade which I have used a already on my Petrel Play using a set of vertical cedar strips glued to the inside of the cockpit opening and to each other. I made an effort to follow the wood colours from the deck through the coaming. This looks fragile but once it is covered in glass and epoxy has proved very strong and reliable.
This was cleaned up and trimmed to approximately the right height before adding a layer of 6oz bias cut cloth bonding the riser to the deck.
For the coming lip I obtained some 2mm ash and walnut 22mm edging, trimmed it to several 6mm width pieces and laminated these to the coaming riser.
The next job was to make the bulkheads. Foam or wood? Well I already had the wood and so I decided to use panels made from the leftover cedar strips so I made a couple of panels and glassed them. Wood panels made from 4mm cedar are about the same weight as a 75mm (3") foam bulkhead.
Getting a good fit is always a challenge with non-rectangular holes, so I borrowed a trick from traditional boat builders and used a joggle stick, or sometimes called a tick stick, that I 3D printed. This was used to created the templates. The idea is that using a piece of wood or plastic that has a unique shape, you can trace where the point is and then later come back and determine where the point was. Starting with a card template based on the nearest building form, I secured the template to the hull with some hot glued blocks so it would not move. Then using the joggle stick I traced the outline using points on the hull. When that was complete the template was removed, placed on a larger sheet of card and the points were transferred to the larger card by carefully placing the joggle stick aligning the indents. Once that was done I traced the outline and cut the template and used that to trace to line onto the wood panels. Fiddly and inky but I think this was worth the extra effort.
The panels were tacked with thickened epoxy and then a fillet was created on both sides.
The next fiddly bit was the hatch covers and trying to make sure they will be fastened will, fairly easy to remove when needed, waterproof and flush. I decided to try Rob Mack's magnetic hatch system, so several pieces of 4mm ply were cut and shaped and the rare earth magnets fitted, and glassed.
These were glued to the inside of the hull opening and other bits were glued to the hatch covers.
The last bit of major work was to add a strip of 4oz glass to the sheer seam. I wanted to have a clean straight edge to I used the tape trick and cut the glass as it became leathery.
After several weeks of fiddly work and a holiday it was time to start finishing the boat. An overall sanding with 60 grit leveled most of the boat nicely, with only a couple of spots where the glass started showing. This was followed by two fill coats rolled on and tipped off with a foam brush, this was starting to look smooth and almost varnish like. Next steps was to do an all over sanding with 240 and in a couple of places a couple more thin fill coats were needed. This was then finished with wet sanding using 240 grit.
Most of the work is now done so varnishing is the next step. I'm using a marine varnish that Fyne Boats use and sell from Coo-Var. Coo-Var varnish. It has a much more traditional smell that some of the Interlux products and is a cheaper option that Epiphanes, both of which I have used in the past and both work well. The Coo-Var went on really well using a foam brush and the technique used by Nick Schade. This is after one coat.
I plan on doing 4 coats with a very light rub down to remove nibs and dust between coats.
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