1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The Last Galley Bulkhead Veneer

I hadn’t been to the tent in two weeks, first for Thanksgiving weekend and then to prepare for the local holiday boat parade. It was nice to take a break, but that also got me thinking about how much of my life I’ve spent on this thing. It’ll be nice when it’s all done, but if I had a ‘way back machine’ I would never have started this project. Then again, I’ve been doing this long enough to recognize when I’m in a slump because things aren’t progressing as well as I’d like. I’ll come out of it soon enough.

That said, we decided on “Merry Grinchmas” as the theme for the boat parade. I made a sign that said Merry Christmas/Grinchmas using 12v strip LEDs, with the “Grinch” and “Christ” parts switching back and forth. The Grinch letters were green, and there were ~200 soldered connections to make it all work. On the bow, the missus took on the role of Grinch, with friends playing Whos. There’s a yellow-LED framed sign up there that has three LED hearts–a little, shriveled one, then two sequentially bigger ones.  In retrospect, it would have been better to use plastic poultry fence for the backing on that sign. The white shrinkwrap plastic lights up from the floodlights we need for the actors, which makes the red hearts less visible. When the Whos’ song comes on, the Grinch hearts grow and everything lights up. I thought we captured the Grinch story in a repeating 1:07 skit, but–alas–the judges didn’t give us any prizes. Instead, they gave a prize to a boat with the theme “co-exist,” an inherently political theme based on the bumper sticker. What’s the world coming to?

Anyway, here’s the skit as performed in our slip back on the dock:

Now, back to the Roamer.

I got the last galley bulkhead veneer panel cut and installed.

I used a hot glue gun and sticks to make a pattern

Then transferred the pattern to the 1/8″ mahogany plywood panel

Trimming a bit from the leading edge of the original woodwork allows the plywood panel to slide in for a nice joint

Test fit looks good

Nice!

The bulkhead is sanded and ready to be wetted out with epoxy

Not too bad for the panel-to-panel butt joint

Ready to roll on the epoxy

After wetting out the panel and bulkhead, I waited for the epoxy to get tacky

2″ tape tabs allow me to place the panel without touching the edges

I don’t want to get epoxy on the mahogany face of the panel.

Every stick serves a purpose

I use a squeegee to push air bubbles out and ensure 100% contact. But the edges of these panels sometimes lift off just a bit, so I use sticks, boards, clamps and plywood scraps to hold everything together while the epoxy cures overnight.

Next day: looks good!

Cover everything with cardboard and call it done

I seem to be working from the bow back toward the stern, and I’d like to put in as much cabinetry in the galley and salon as I can so long as it doesn’t impinge on my plywood panel cutting space. There’s a lot of cabinetry in the galley and salon that’s under the side decks, and it won’t get in the way if I install it. So I’ll start on that next. The new air conditioners also arrived, and I need to install the one in the V-berth so I can finish up the cabinetry there. I just wish it’d all go faster.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Roughing Out the Galley Pantry