Don't do it! The coaming on the Shearwater is not flat. Glue the whole assembly onto the boat in one operation. Have 15-20 of Home Depot's 99-cent spring clamps on hand. Once you get it all together, you have time to make minor adjustments. Then clean up as much excess epoxy as you can before it hardens. See photos and more ideas on the Shearwater, Merganser, and Ganymede pages on my blog site www.twofootartist.com

-Wes

Thank you Wes. I have referred to your "Shearwater Construction Notes" frequently, and found some good tips. I glued the hatch spacers to the hatch rims seperately, and followed your advice for the fiberglass cutting.

On my first Shearwater I glued the whole thing down at once. On the second one I put plastic on the deck and glued the spacers and coaming together while clamping the assembly to the deck. I then lifted it off and was able to sand the spacers easily. I then glued it onto the deck. This worked out really well.

Dan

What Dan said. Here's how I did it on my WD12:

and here's how it turned out:

Note the properly formed curve built into the coaming. And here it is being finally assembled onto the boat:

Doing it this way does indeed make the sanding and glue drip cleanup infinitely easier, as well as preserving the deck from scratches. While this is a WD12 instead of a Shearwater, the principle is identical for both boats.

Laszlo

You can sort of see the plastic in this pic...

Or, you can glue down the spacers first, take care of sanding and skim-coating them, then glue the coaming. I found this way to be more manageable than trying to keep the whole stack of parts aligned. I wouldn't worry too much about the outside of the spacers. They're pretty well hidden under the shadow of the coaming.

Cheers, Pat

Would this also work on the Chesapeak?  

Thanks, Laslo, it seems to be working perfectly. Sanding the outside of the coaming spacers was a breeze.

I ran veneer around the inside & outside spacers of the coaming to hide the laminations on my Shearwater.

Lew

Jim,

You're quite welcome (but remember, you heard it from Dan first).

Ken,

Absolutely yes.

Laszlo

Laszlo,

You're a gentleman and a scholar. I hope to see you again at Okoumefest

Dan