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Redoing the coaming & pocket yacht palooza


ecgossett

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I've used orange based paint remover, and gotten all epoxy and paint off coaming, then sanded it down.

 

One of my goals is to strengthen the top of the coaming. Would 3"x6 ounce glass tape work all the way around the top (with one side resting against deck), laminated in place with plastic look good? i will be one inch short of inside bottom of coaming, but this would significantly strengthen the coaming for wear and tear. I'm tired of redoing varnish and or epoxy.

 

My other option is to use the Schooner Varnish I picked up, and water the first coat down with pain thinner, so it soaks in and do the whole coaming in that and worry about replacing the coaming instead at a future date.

 

Oh, who's going to the Pocket Yacht Palooza in Port Townsend this weekend?

 

 

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One of my goals is to strengthen the top of the coaming. Would 3"x6 ounce glass tape work all the way around the top (with one side resting against deck), laminated in place with plastic look good? i will be one inch short of inside bottom of coaming, but this would significantly strengthen the coaming for wear and tear. I'm tired of redoing varnish and or epoxy.

I don't see how this helps protect your varnish from wear and tear.

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Well, varnish will come off regardless and need to be replaced periodically, but adding tape/epoxy will help thicken and harden the coaming's epoxy coating so that dings, scrapes, etc. aren't as likely to penetrate into the wood itself. So in that sense, it will save you from re-epoxying as often.Do you have a single layer thickness coaming? If so, I think the single best upgrade you could make--though a bit more labor intensive--is an idea Ray suggested to me during our build: Double the thickness of the coaming by running a second layer of 1/4" thick wood around the outside (i.e. along the outside face, and above deck portion of the coaming). On our CS20, the coaming is spec'd to be 1/4" thick, but after installing the ply backrests that form the coaming, we added 1/4" thick strip of Mahogany all the way around the outside of the (above-deck) coaming. As a result, the upper edge of our coaming is 1/2" thick. I ran around both the inside and outside edges of the top of the coaming with a 3/16" roundover bit and then epoxy sealed and varnished. The finished product looks nicer, feels better against the back of your legs when hiking out, and stands up to a lot more abuse.

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1/4" coaming. After being flipped, smashed, and then repair pieces put in, it looks a little patchwork on parts. Eventually the whole thing will need replaced.

 

With my build for the EC22 getting ready to go into full swing, and selling the CS17 in the future, I just want it to look nice.

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If it's already 1/4" thick... What about fairing the coaming all the way around with thickened epoxy, then sanding it lightly and painting it? That would eliminate the patchwork (cosmetic) issue you described and the problem of varnish. A brown or tan color would probably look good.

 

I would think if the coaming is 1/4" thick, you should already have adequate strength as long as your patches were done well, so I'm not understanding the purpose of applying the 3" FB tape as you mentioned. However, it should be doable if you think it's necessary. But it doesn't solve the cosmetic problem unless you paint it. Also, if you're planning to wrap the tape over the top edge of the coaming, that might become labor intensive. I'd probably only apply it on the outside edge and then trim it flush with the top of the coaming after it hardened. And if you're going to wrap it down onto the deck, you'll want a well radiused fillet for that purpose.

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I would consider a "cap" of some sort. Typically these are hardwood, with well round corners, often notched on the bottom or "let" on the inboard face so the combing edge is protected. These caps also provide a little more meat to sit on, which is particularly import if you have a bony butt, with little padding, like me.

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