1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Completing the Bow Seat Window Installation

With two out of three mahogany panels installed for the galley/bow seat windows, next I wrapped up installing the center window and the port panel and window.

Center and starboard bow seat windows are installed

The boat’s filthy!

Once the outside is waterproof, I plan to wash the whole thing. Gotta get the windows in first.

Glue and clamp the port panel in place

2×4 pushes the edge tight to the side mahogany panel

Next day, off come the clamps and in goes the window for a test fit

Nice fit at the corner [pats self on back 🙂 ]

I’m a weekend warrior woodworker, so making these panels fit–with all of the angles and bevels–was a huge challenge. Fortunately, it turned out pretty good. After the way things have gone with most of the highly paid professionals on this refit, it feels good when a rookie like me does a better job than the pros.

Blow off the dust and get ready to install the window

Taped off and ready to install

Alcohol cleans the sealing surfaces, Sikaflex 291 LOT is the sealant, and I used some leftover Awlgrip T0170 Surface Cleaner to clean up any caulk residue that remains after I pull the tape.

Center opening window is a very cool feature.

Motion Windows design is outstanding. I really like the center opening windows, and the fact that there are no exterior fasteners or holes to let in water. It’s too bad they consistently oversize the windows so they don’t fit in the window openings, and Motion’s unprofessional response to my complaint about oversizing should serve as a warning to anybody planning to purchase from them.

Et voila! Done!

It’s great to finally have the bow seat windows and interior mahogany panels installed, especially with winter coming. And this winter looks like it’s going to be a whopper. Temps in the Mid-Atlantic region have been very warm in December, just like they were in 2003 when we first moved to the area. If the pattern holds, I expect that around the second week of January temps will drop below freezing and stay there for a month, though it hopefully won’t be as brutally cold as it was last year. We’ve had a few mornings that dropped below freezing, and I can already tell there’s a huge benefit from the spray foam insulation I installed earlier this year. So the cold won’t be an issue; the bigger concern is snow.

The boat explosion next door in July 2015 shredded my tent shrink wrap film and broke some of the tent frames in addition to blowing out a window and damaging my brand new Awlgrip paint. Tent Model X has been awesome–a vast improvement over Tent Models I through XI–and it was tough enough to survive Hurricane Sandy unscathed. But there’s no way post-explosion Tent Model X  can hold up to the roof loads of a snow storm, and I’ve got to re-make the scaffolding so the paint damage can be fixed. Which means I’m back in the tent-making business…

Next up on our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Tent Model XXX