: Hey guys
: I'm using Nick Schades book as a guide, and I just finished
: stripping, but the book is a little fuzzy as to what I should do
: next. Should I do the planing and sanding before the cockpit
: coping? Should I fiberglass before doing the coping? Should I do
: te coping first?

: Also, on a slightly similar note, schade outlines a few ways to do
: the coping, I am making a 14 foot great awk, it has a lot of
: vertical distant between the bow and stern side of the cockpit,
: what method would be best?

: Thanks so much, your guys' help has been great

Personally, I did some rough fairing first, before cutting the recess hole and making up the recess. And then finished off the fairing/sanding when the recess was complete. If I'd cut the recess hole before the rough fairing, I was nervous that I might over-sand near the recess hole and compromise the strip thickness there.

When you cut the hole for your recess, cut it a couple of millimetres inside the line, and then sand up to the line. I cut along the line, and in a few places, had a little bit of tear out (which admittedly pretty much disappeared when sanding).

The other thing I found helpful was to drill 30mm holes in the forms, where the jigsaw blade has to pass through the forms when cutting the recess. It's really hard work for the saw to cut through the forms otherwise.

In terms of glassing - I did it in this order (for a Guillemot):
1 Stripped the recess
2 Glassed the deck outside
3 Built the coaming riser out of strips
4 Glassed the coaming riser outside with a small overlap onto the deck.
5 Laminated strips around the riser for the coaming lip (but without gluing to the riser)
6 Shaped the coaming lip
7 Glued the coaming lip to the riser
8 Glassed the inside of the deck. At first, I tried continuing the glass up the riser, but this was impossible without cutting darts in the glass, which looked grotty on the coaming riser. So in the end I just glassed the deck inside up to the edge of the coaming hole, and then used a second layer of bias strips, to glass from the deck underside, up the coaming and over the coaming lip. It was a lot easier than I expected - what really helped was pasting the resin onto the coaming first, and then laying the glass on top - made it heaps easier than trying to force the resin through the glass.

I've only built one though! So take others' opinions over mine. But this worked for me and the coaming is extremely strong and stiff.

More detail here:
http://ianjohnsonz.wordpress.com/category/guillemot-kayak/6-glassing/d-deck-outside/

Cheers, Ian