> I didn't really like any of the popular methods for purly asthetic
> reasons. After much trial and error (and I gotta admit some pretty lame
> ideas). I finally built it out of 1" square lengths of mohogany.

Sounds very familiar to me! I did mine the very same way--1" square lengths of mahogany, except I glued mine directly to the deck, and then cut out the deck and coaming together to get the inside shape of the cockpit. I glued the CLC-recommended 6mm okoume ring on top to form the outer lip. It works well, took just a little more time than stacking plywood rings, and looks better than stacked ply.

Shawn

> I began by laying a short length of my 1" stock across the back of
> the cockpit after shaping the underside to mach the shape of the cockpit
> recess on a disk-sander, then I clamped it down with some clamps I made
> from PVC pipe, making sure that it overlapped the cockpit edge by at least
> 1/8". After that it was just a matter of working my way around the
> cockpit shaping pieces on a disk sander, butting the pieces together on
> the boat, and then glueing them together and clamping them down. I layed
> pieces of plastic bag under each glue joint, so that after it dried I was
> left with a fairly jagged looking wooden ring that I could take off the
> boat. I ran a pencil around the cockpit opening where the coaming
> overlapped edge and shaped the inside edge on a drum sander, scribed a
> line for the outside edge by following the inside edge with a marking
> gauge and the same for the top edge by folling the bottom edge, sanded
> down to these lines on the disk and drum sander. Now I had a nice smooth
> ring that was 7/8" high by about 3/4" wide around the edges. I
> cut a cove into the lower outside edge with a 1/4" gouging chisel
> (man, didn't that take some time!) and sanded it smooth with a bit of
> sandpaper stapled to a 2" length of broom handle. Then I put the
> whole thing on the boat, and glassed around the outside edge with some
> bias cut cloth.

> I still had to round off the inside edge and I got all nervous about
> stuffing it up, so I stopped and got some pratice by building a greenland
> style paddle out of some recycled western red cedar. The paddle turned out
> brilliant, so I dived in and rounded out the coaming. Using 1" strips
> of sand paper I sanded until the inner and outer curves matched and the
> coaming was of uniform thickness all the way around.

> It was pretty tricky to glass the flair of the coaming, I had to cut
> pieces of 6oz glass oversize, staple them to the under side of the deck,
> fold them over the coaming and tape them to the outside deck with packing
> tape.

> As it stands, I've put on four coats of epoxy, and am ready to sand it
> smooth and put on some varnish. It is the same rounded shape as coamings
> I've seen on most fiberglass kayaks, and looks awesome.

> It allready surpasses all expectations I had for this boat (and for while
> there I began to have some doubts). I guess it's the recovery that counts
> ;-)

> Would I use this meathod again? Well the results are worth it, but it's
> probably too much work and not enough paddling.

> Paul.