The weather has been unbelievable. I'm working under my cover which is like mining. My cockpit coamings are attached to the deck and the lower cockpit deck. The ends are attached to the cabinhouse. As well as holding these areas together, the coamings get stood on, help hold winch forces, not a frill piece, they're an important structural part of the boat.

Over the decades, as the joint loosened, previous owners filled the gaps with various goop, unsuccessfully added more screws to pull it back. I decided to fix them. The top caps had to come off, then the filler blocks that form the sculpted ends. After 50 years, I find bronze screws give me about a 50/50 removal rate. So I'm prepared and just cut them off with a hack saw blade in a hand holder. I separated the filler blocks(2 piece), cleaned and flattened the mating surfaces and epoxied back together. Then I did the same to the coaming ends and glued and fastened the blocks to the coaming ends and let them dry. This allowed me to shape them a bit before fastening back to the cabin. It took some creative clamping to pull them in. But in they went, except for a scant 1/8". Rather than fight that, I added an 1/8 inch filler. The thickened epoxy gave a satisfying squeeze out on all edges. 8 screws are driven from inside the cabin as well as 2 from outside and into the cabin corner. This is a well engineered wooden joint with more than a century of John Alden Design experience. As the shape was now changed, and I had destroyed the old caps, I rough cut a pair of new ones oversized, fastened with screws(3 more from inside the cabin, more joint strength), and cut 50 wooden plugs to fill way too many screw holes. As well as the originals, previous attempts added a few extras. Not much you can do, with an old boat like this, plugs are like battle scars, acceptable damage from 50 years of use. Then it's a matter of some very pleasant time(if they're very sharp) with fine saws, chisels, cabinet scraper, planes, blocks with sand paper. One reason to do this is I'm repairing the cabin to deck joint below. Varnish on my boat is in various state of maintenance. I'll wood the coamings and build up the new base, it's been 8 years since that was done and while they could go another year or two, I've already stripped the ends. The cabin on the other hand was done just a couple years ago. I'll fill in the bare edge now with some patch coats, continue with a yearly coat, and it should give me the years of use(8 to 10) I expect. My boat is more work than many but it's going into season #51, and looks more than up to it.