After laying out the interior concepts on the aft stateroom floor and rough cutting the 3/4″ mohagany plywood panels to size, I walked all of the panels off the boat and took them to the paint shop for coating with ICA’s clear base coat.
No, that’s not a typo. I’m clear coating the panels before I install them.
By putting a heavy base coat on the panels, I’ll protect the very thin top veneer from damage during install. Even the most incidental contact leaves marks in this new plywood, and the veneers are so thin you can’t always sand away the damage. Clear coating first will also allow me to use epoxy thickened with wood flour to glue the panels in place in addition to conventional fasteners. Without a coating on the veneer, epoxy discolors the mahogany. With a coating on the veneer, any epoxy that lands on the ICA base coat will wipe off with alcohol on a rag. That’s the theory, anyway. Before too long, I’ll definitely be writing an article about how it turns out.
Rough cut mahogany panels loaded into my beater truck
Hanging in the spray booth
And back in the beater truck
That ICA base coat is some thick stuff. It’s tough as nails, but also sands really well.
Back to the boat!
Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Nice Score On a Dewalt DWS780 Miter Saw
1969chriscraftroamer46 
have you look at Johns Manvilles incombustible hullboard, semi rigid felted glass fiber product that provides acoustical and thermal insulation on ships.
Hi Mike. I wasn’t aware of JM incombustible hullboard until you mentioned it, but it looks similar to a product I used on my Connie. Because it’s a fiberglass product, I wouldn’t use it on my Roamer since ‘glass catches and holds water. The nonwoven insulation products look like the best approach for the back-side of the living space envelope panels, with closed cell spray foam on the hull and ceilings.
Thanks for the idea, though.
Cheers,
Q