Plus - paint will cover a multitude of sins. No matter what your woodwork looks like, as long as it's solid that final 0.020" of paint can fool every judge at every Concours d' Elegance in the world. To them, beauty is skin deep and with the right coat of paint your rescue can compete and win.

As far as your first question, way back when, in the Chris Kulczycki days, CLC kayaks used to not specify glassing the deck. Originally, it was thought that epoxy saturation alone would be enough to protect it. Then some time back, based on customer experiences, glassing the deck became standard.

If your rescue is old enough, it may have the original epoxy-only deck instructions. You should definitely cover it with 4-oz glass for better durability.

Enjoy your rescue,

Laszlo

   Perfect reply!  Thanks so much. I'll definitly be glassing the deck!

     For what it's worth, I have a decommissioned CLC demo boat. Based on grain pattern, it looks to be the same boat  illustrated in the manual, which dates it to ~1996- the Chris Kulczycki days, I guess. The decks were never glassed, but under the sketchy epoxy they seemed in good shape after decades of road trips and hundreds if not thousands of sales prospects banging around in it. 

I sanded down to wood and coated with epoxy and 2-part polyurethane. Looks nice now - we'll see how it holds up.