While I was transforming Tent Model IX from a storm-resistant winter tent into a spring paint shed, the fairing crew made good progress rounding all of the edges on the cabin top, finishing up the helm door openings, and putting more fillets into the remaining hard inside corners.
A black spray paint guide coat shows when the line is straight.
Once the line is straight through the middle of the rounded edge, apply another light guide coat of spray paint and make the next beveled passes.
Keep repeating until you’ve got a nice, consistent rounded edge along the entire length of the cabin top.
At the bow seat, a router makes easy work of rounding the edge.
We were able to use a router here because you’re basically working with a <90* corner. The outside edge, by comparison, is >90*, so there’s no good, consistent place for the router bit roller guide to run up against.
Beautiful transition from small to large radius rounds.
This is why it’s good to have professional fairing crews who work on multimillion dollar boats do your fairing work for you. They make it perfect and they’re fast! In fact, one of the toughest things for a guy like me (who has a day job, house and family) is keeping up with (and hopefully ahead of) this professional crew from Weaver Boatworks.
The rounded edges and fillets on the bow seat are works of art, too.
They’ll look even better in primer and then paint!
The helm station door openings are nearly done.
I seem to have lost the pix I took of the fiberglass work here but, as with the rest of the FRP work we’ve done, there’s a layer of 1708 bi-axial mat over the two layers of 3/4″ marine plywood here. We’re using Awl Fair here to make it smooth, mostly because I had a couple of buckets of it left over from when we faired the hull in 2008.
The port side hardtop support from inside the aft deck.
This looks just a wee bit better than when we first found the boat.
Circa December 2007
Port side helm door opening from the outside in 2013
Again, I think it’s reasonable to say it looks a tad better than when we found the boat in 2007.
The top of the sliding door pocket.
Mahogany finished bright will make up the right (inner) side of the door pocket…after everything’s painted.
Fillets on the deck joint to smooth things out
As with the other fillet work we’ve done, these ones cover a strong 1708 bi-axial FRP tape that covers the deck to cabin-top seam. We still need to round the edges here, but there’s only so many hours in a day!
Hopefully, you were too distracted by the fairing crew’s outstanding work to notice the plastic film taped to the boat in some of these pix. That plastic film is a very, very good indicator that somebody’s been spraying some sort of coating…
If I wasn’t so dog tired, I’d be giddy! 😉
Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The Hardtop!
1969chriscraftroamer46 