: Hey, all-

: Still working on that Chesapeake 16LT.

: I've been reading the thread on superlight build methods, because the owner's
: going to have to wrestle it herself most of the time.

: In an effort to eliminate heavy epoxy, I'm considering a composite fiberglass
: or carbon fiber cockpit coaming, rather than laminating up the plywood
: coaming that came with the kit.

Hi Brian,
Consider doing a plywood coaming, but doing things different from the stacked plywood type. I used flexible 1/8" birch plywood for both the riser & coaming lip.

The riser was constructed much like described on the One Ocean web site: http://www.oneoceankayaks.com/Wshophtm/Shop14.htm or http://www.oneoceankayaks.com/stitchglue/plyshophtm/coam_rim14b.htm

Vaclav also describes how to make the coaming lip out of carbon fibre/glass. http://www.oneoceankayaks.com/Wshophtm/Shop15.htm

I made the riser as described, but I also made the lip of the thin birch plywood.

My steps were to attach the riser (cut oversize) with CA glue, then add a fillet on the outside of the deck/riser joint and glass from the deck to the riser (done as I glassed the whole deck). I then trimmed the riser to height, and trimmed the riser flush with the underside of the deck recess. I fiberglassed the underside of the deck, extending the glass onto the inside of the riser. I don't recall if I installed the lip before or after glassing the underside of the deck. However, I initially tacked the lip in place with CA glue, then added a fillet underneath the coaming at the riser/lip joint and glass that wrapped from deck, up the lip, and onto the lip. In the end, glass wraps on both sides of riser & lip from all the way around. So, the end product is very strong and the plywood serves as the form. Edges were rounded before encasing them in glass.

The end product looks good, is fairly light, is strong, and was easy to do. I've never been a big fan of the stacked plywood coamings.

In your case, with no glass on your plywood deck, you can still do things fairly similar with glass cut on the bias to wrap it around. Things could be a little tricky since you can't flip your deck over as a separate unit the way I did. But that should be only a minor inconvenience.

Cheers,
Bryan

: Have any of you done this on an unglassed ply deck? Is it strong enough for
: thigh bracing on that keyhole shape? Do any of you know of a source for a
: pre-fab coaming?

: I'm not sure how I'd create my own, without some kind of form to lay up the
: glass. Anyone have a building technique or how to site for coamings
: they've built?

: Thanks,
: Brian