Black Pearl Project - Glassing the Coaming and Deck

So here's the week in review. In my last post, I had the coaming roughed in. The next step was to trim it down to the right height - 3/4" -  and sand it down. In the pictures below you will see the deck sanded as well.

Coaming trimmed and sanded.

From the aft - showing Bomar deck plate.

I decided to go with a full glass cockpit riser and lip using the wood as a base. I used 1/2" polystyrene foam  Home Depot as the mold.

Foam tacked in place with hot melt glue.

 To make the first layer of glass easy to fit, I went with short pieces run vertically.

Vertical glass!

 I used pigmented epoxy on the coaming.

Glass wetted out.

After the first layer of glass epoxy. Excess not trimmed.

After three layers, the excess was trimmed. A light sanding as well.

After 10 layers of glass and epoxy, I determined the whole unit was stiff enough. I feel compelled to point out that in the middle of this job there was a potentially "fatal" hiccup to the whole thing but it all worked out in the end. (Thank gawd that golden horsehoe is still firmly in place) In a nutshell I wanted to round the coaming but decided to do so AFTER I had three layers of glass down. A careful rounding using a rasp would have been more prudent but in my haste, I took a saw and proceeded to hack away - rather crudely, I must add!!. It was looking pretty grim for a while but it actually worked out very nice!!  I now have a nicely shaped, i.e., rounded, lip on my cockpit rim!!

Between the jigs and reels, the coaming took me from Sunday to Thursday to complete. With the coaming done, I did the final sanding on the deck in anticipation of glassing.

I almost had second thoughts about the Black Pearl being All-Black Pearl at this point. Seeing the deck all sanded and contrasting so nicely against the black hull, I almost decided to leave the deck "au natural". Discussions with Cheryl ensued. Cheryl loves the look of the wood and suggested that if I left the deck unpainted, at least people would know that the boat was a stripper!! I was not entirely convinced. Read on to see the verdict . . .

Cockpit coaming with foam removed.

Foredeck sanded.

Sanded deck ready for glass.

Good Friday was the day for glassing the deck. I laid the glass on the deck and the Shroud of Turin immediately sprang to mind. If I lifted the glass would the image of my boat be forever seen on it??  I waited for the lightening bolt to strike me dead!!

The Shroud of Paradise

The Shroud of Paradise - foredeck!

I made my final decision and the images below show the outcome. The Black Pearl will be just that -a full-on   black boat!!

The "Oreo" boat!!!

The All-Black Pearl!!

I've now got three coats of pigmented epoxy on and after one more will determine whether the boat is ready for sanding.

Thanks for dropping by,

Sean