6AM Saturday morning, August 17, 2013. The clamps are off of the mahogany moldings I put on the aft enclosure the night before. The Boatamalan crew shows up one by one, and by 7am everybody is either working a sander or hand sanding the final coat of Awl Grip 545 primer on the aft deck enclosure and dashboard. Today, Sunday, August 18, 2013, we’re putting the shiny on the dashboard.
Lots of corners on the inside of the window frames means lots of hand sanding.
Aft enclosure mahogany moldings are nicely taped off and the enclosure is sanded smooth.
The dashboard is sanded smooth with 320 grit Mirka Abranet.
After all the sanding is done, we removed all of the old plastic covering the boat because it harbors dust in every nook and cranny. Then we washed the boat and the inside walls and structure of the tent, leaving the scaffolding dripping wet to control any dust that remains. We covered everything in Sharkskin plastic and 3M hand masking film.
You go through lots of tape and plastic on a job like this.
In addition to painting the dashboard, we’re also doing the inside of the aft enclosure window frames today.
We’re also taping areas in preparation for the aft enclosure paint job tomorrow.
The last step was to put filters on the inlet vents and exhaust fans, fire up the fresh air system, don space suits and get to spraying.
Flaps up means air is moving through the tent.
The exhaust fan filters we’re using really do an excellent job of catching overspray. The stink still comes through, but that’s about it. The air inlet vents are at the front of the boat and five exhaust fans are on the back, which gives very good flow to quickly remove overspray. If the overspray isn’t evacuated from the tent fast enough, it can land on the skin that quickly forms on the surface of the paint film, causing the paint to lose its shine.
This paint has zero problems with the shine. 😉
The dashboard and instrument pod in Awl Craft 2000 Matterhorn White.
“The shiny” on the visible inside surfaces of the aft enclosure is very…shiny
Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Painting “the Shiny” on the Aft Enclosure.
1969chriscraftroamer46 