It’s nice when I make actual progress on this boat. Since the windshield frame extrusions and a bunch of other stuff were stolen by bastard thieves back in May 2014, a lot of what I’ve been doing has been playing catch-up, trying to get back to where I was before the burglars cleaned me out. Before the theft, I had spent a bunch of time, money, and effort getting the original windshield back into good condition. I’d made the last of the new connector pieces and machined and welded together a new opening center windshield, since the original had been removed by a previous owner and replaced with a sheet of acrylic plastic. All I had to do was reassemble the windshield frame and install it…but then half of the extrusions were stolen. So I had to rebuild the tent into a spray booth (again) and do some fiberglass and fairing work all around the hardtop, since the thieves took my drip rails, too. I eventually got a new windshield frame welded together, though the fit wasn’t quite as good as it needed to be. So that necessitated breaking open my brand new Awlgrip paint job to modify the hardtop and cabin top to fit the new windshield frame. All of this effort wasn’t really making progress, it was just getting me back to where I was the day before the thieves ripped me off.
Well…I’ve now gotten past that point (on the windshield frame, at least). In the whirl of activity to get the windshield primed and painted, I forgot to snap pix along the way. But the frame got a couple coats of Awlgrip Max Cor CF aluminum primer. We sanded that and gave it a couple coats of Awl Grip 545 primer, then final sanded that with 320 grit and basically turned the aft deck into a spray booth. The new windshield frame is all sparkly and shiny!
et voila! Shiny!
Check out that reflection!
The paint is surprisingly dirt and blemish-free
What looks like hazy nastiness in the pic above is actually the reflection of the plastic walls of the “spray booth,” perfectly reflected in the mirror-like finish of the paint. My Boatamalan painter has got serious skills when it comes to laying down Awlgrip.
Sparkly black metallic Awl Grip
The metallic black is subtle inside the tent…I wonder what it’ll look like out in the sun?
Shiny on the interior side, too
Spray booth disassembled in 3 minutes flat
Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Shiny Matterhorn White on the Hard Top (again)
1969chriscraftroamer46 