Believe I have ya beat on the rookie thing as it pertains to boat terminology.

About a 1-1/2 years ago, when I first came aboard here, I was starting my Night Heron and having some troubles with my strongback. When I queried the list I managed to get the term 'strongarm' in my head thus everyone had a good laugh on me with my dumbass questions! Someone finally corrected me with good humour. (It may have been that renegade Canadian Robert Pruden!) Fortunately, no one could see me blushing over the 'net

Now.... I built my coaming (and yes, I had trouble with that term, too!), before I glassed the deck. Stripped the recess and glued in the uprights. Cut the coaming carefully to about 1.5" high so it was even. This made it easier to lay the cloth over as compared to a bunch of varying height strips. Before I laid the cloth I placed a fillet around the base of the coaming for the transition.

The advantage to this method is the lack of a cloth transition that results when you glass the coaming after the deck. The disadvantage is it can be a bit of a trick to get the continuous cloth up and over the coaming in a neat and orderly manner. I don't know if there would be a strength difference in the two methods.

My coaming and rim (ash lams), came out extremely strong. I can easily stand on them (I'm 165#). Overall height of the coaming is 13/16" with a 5/8" gap for the skirt.

I'll probably do my next boat the same way but I think either method is probably just as good as the other.

Pleasant building and luck to ya.

Holmes