The coaming is the raised portion of the hull around the cockpit. It reinforces the shape, protects the exposed edges and also keeps a bit of water out of the hull. On smaller, one-man kayaks it also provides a lip to hold onto the spray skirt.
Most of the instructions out there suggest that you hot glue individual pieces to the hull and at the same time use wood glue to glue them to each other. I tried this and quickly gave up in frustration. Here’s what I did instead.
I cut a bucket full of 2 inch long cedar strips. (I used the leftover bead and cove strips that I had already). I then glued these to each other using the same waterproof glue I have been using on the hull strips. I then carefully squeezed them together and clamped them on a coated piece of wood to dry.
Once they were dry, I removed the clamps, knocked them free of the board and used a belt sander to roughly clean them all up. End result, lots of large chunks of wood to glue together for the coaming rather than hundreds of fiddly little pieces.
Caption: Cedar pieces ready for gluing.
I used a melamine (formica) coated board as there was a scrap piece lying around. However, you can use any wood for a template, just cover it with packing tape first so the strips don’t stick.
Caption: One completed strip already clamped and wiped down with a wet rag. Second strip underway.
I used a straight board as the curves on my cockpit are not too extreme, however if you are trying to do this for a one man kayak cockpit you should probably put some bend into your forms so the strips are roughly the right shape. However, I found that after belt sanding the strips were still flexible enough to fit the cockpit shape.
Caption: Strip of cedar pieces drying.
The different colours in the strip above were caused by using a piece of cedar that had weathered a bit. Not to worry though, a few minutes with the belt sander once it was dry and all the strips were the same colour again.
