Sanded and Stained

I tried to tackle the coaming sanding with a sanding block and sheer strength, that lasted about 20 minutes and resulted in sore muscles and little progress. Then I bought this:

A sanding drum and sand paper sleeves that slide onto the drum. The drum is then chucked to my cordless drill. WOW. It was the best $9.00 investment I ever made. I plowed through the tough layers of epoxy and wood with little effort, saving me hours and hours of frustrating hand work. 

The result was a smooth coaming but one that needed to be stained again. No big deal. Here's the final sanded and stained coaming:

I have also been working on the hatches concurrently with the coaming construction. In the last post, you'll remember, I strengthened the hatches by gluing supports to the underside of the deck. The next step for the hatches was to epoxy to the hatch rims to the deck exterior. The serves as a lip to help seat the hatch cover and maintain a water tight seal. Here's the forward hatch rim getting ready to be clamped down in place.