1969 Chris Craft Roamer Refit: Wrapping up the Base Coat Varnish in the Salon

With six coats of ICA base coat clear sprayed in the salon and on the salon trim, next we sanded it all with 320 grit and sprayed another two heavy coats. ICA is a base coat/top coat application, so the purpose of these heavy base coats is to seal up and protect the wood. If we happen to scratch the base coat it’s OK, since we’ll sand it all again and spray the final top coat once all of the interior work is done.

When last we saw the salon mahogany, it had 6 coats of ICA

Galley cabinet

320 grit knocks off the orange peel

The grain is deep in the old mahogany plywood

That wraps up one lap of the salon with sandpaper

Time to clean up and get ready to spray.

Oxidation stains have vanished from the salon cabinets

Once we got it all cleaned up, we fired up the compressor, suited up, cranked up the exhaust fans. It was too late for pix, but the next time I came to the boat it looked like this:

Shiny!

Time for a little “before & after.”

Circa 2007

Circa October 2015

Starboard side galley will look much better with all of the panels installed

That’s some beautiful old mahogany

I was tempted to rip out the old cabinets and redo it from new, in part, because Chris Craft used sharp corners on their old cruiser cabinetry and I like the rounded corners that I’m using in the aft stateroom. But now that I see how the old wood turned out, I’m glad I kept it.

Galley cabinets will look better with all of the doors and chrome hardware installed

With all of the salon wood nice and pretty, now I need to keep it that way. Time to break out the single flute cardboard roll and masking tape.

The salon steps have their own transformational story to tell

I mentioned that I was using a different approach for the salon steps, since they will see very heavy service compared to cabinets and walls. So, that’s what’s up…

Next in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Making the Salon Steps Pretty.