1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Fillets!

There are many interior angles on the exterior of this Roamer, and Chris Craft smoothed many–but not all–of them with fillets. Since hard, non-filleted angles are weaker, subject to collecting dirt, harder to wash and tend not to shed rain as well, we’re putting fillets pretty much everywhere there’s a visible, hard interior angle.

Welded deck seam fillets just like the original, but better with modern materials.

We used the same homemade fairing compound we’ve been using for the whole project: US Composites 635 epoxy with 3M microballoons and cabocil (in a 3:2 ratio), mixed to a peanut butter consistency.

Fillets–To Eternity and Beyond!!!

The fillet on the cabin top-to-deck seam covers a heavy layer of 1708 bi-axial fiberglass that we applied over that seam. This approach should be far superior to the painted 1″ quarter-round mahogany that Chris Craft originally used to seal that joint that I talked about in an article on fairing the cabin top.

Same approach around the front of the base of the cabin top.

No more leaks, and looks a whole lot cleaner than the original quarter-round mahogany.

Fillets for every size corner!

At the edges of the new bow seat, we’re using a smaller fillet than what we used down on the deck. But it’s larger than the original fillet that came out of the Chris Craft FRP mold. Hopefully, when combined with the geometry changes we made when we built the seat, it will shed water (and dirt) better than the original, tight radius corner.

Still smaller fillets around the galley window openings.

Out of the original Chris Craft mold, there were no fillets to speak of here. Everything was pretty much hard corners, which collected dirt and propagated cracks.

The deck fillet terminates to a point at midships.

The cabin top-to-deck seam joint is filleted all the way back to the helm station door openings.

The fairing compound on the deck here covers the welded seam where once there used to be the transition from aluminum decks to teak.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Transforming Tent Model IX Into a Paint Shed.