"Coaming" Along

Here's an illustrated walk through what I have been up to in the kayak shop:

Here's how the coaming looks after taking off all the clamps and sawing off

the excess inside deck area. Looks great but there's a TON of sanding where

all the sandwiched layers are now exposed.

This is the forward hatch cutting guide. First I find the center line (pink string)

and then position this guide and trace around it onto the deck. I follow this 

guideline with the jigsaw.

You can see where I drilled a starter hole for the jigsaw blade to start from. 

Drilling and sawing through the deck was just a little nerve-racking.  

In this photo of the aft hatch you are looking at the reinforcement plywood

that I glued to the underside of the deck to strengthen the opening.

Here, once again, lots of clamps. This time they are securing the hatch

reinforcement layers as the epoxy cures.

Finally, as you can see from this photo, the current state of the kayak seems to 

be in pretty much disarray. Sawdust is covering every surface. Used rubber gloves 

scatter the floor. Discarded sandpaper is thrown about. Rest assured, this will all 

be gone soon enough.