Expedition wherry, cockpit rim

Builder's Forum
1

My initial dry fit of the lower portion of the cockpit rim didn’t go very well and I’m looking for assistance. I laid out both the lower and the upper on a flat concrete floor (separately and away from the deck) and glued the puzzle joints, achieving a very good result.

A day later, I placed the lower coaming on the deck and had difficulty determining if there is a proper orientation as to forward or aft facing. The assembled rim did not easily line up with the deck’s cockpit cutout.

I clamped the forward end of the rim to the to the deck’s center line and while attempting to bend the coaming into position (to match the cockpit’s cut out), it cracked, not along the glue line, but cleanly across the grain. It will be an easy fix.

This the first and only time that the kit’s precut parts have let me down. Everything else has been superb.

So, before another dry fit or glueing attempt, a few questions. 1) is there indeed a forward and aft orientation that I need to concern myself with? 2) should I glue both the lower and upper coamings together before dry fitting and final glueing? 3)do the comings “mirror one another and should they perfectly line up with the edge of the cockpit opening or will I need to plan on some trimming/sanding?

Thanks in advance for any assistance. John

2

After a head scratch, I’ll answer my own questions in hopes no one else makes the same mistake that I did. Yes, the upper and lower cockpit coamings are mirror images of one another. Yes, there is a forward and an aft end.

The difference is quite subtle and if you are not assembling the upper and lower sections at the same time, one on top of the other and clamping, one might make the mistake that I did.

When I joined the four pieces of one of the coamings, I mistakenly flipped the forward for aft on one side. There’s nothing to prevent you from doing this. The puzzle joints fit either way.

I walked away. It was the end of the day. If I had the time to sandwich that evening, I would have realized my mistake. I didn’t, my bad.

So, I cut the joined coamings into two halves at the forward and aft ends and will butt them together.

To eliminate the possibility to replicating my mistake, I suggest assembling the coaming on the boat after the deck is fully assembled. My mistake would have been immediately apparent during the dry fit.