I’m still working on getting estimates for the damage to the boat from the big Nor’easter that ripped through the area. In the meantime, I had a big pile of relatively fragile 1/8″ mahogany plywood in a full 4×8 sheet and also a lot of large scraps that I wanted to get out of the way. I used it to veneer the bulkhead between the galley and V-berth and also for the insulated ceiling on the underside of the port deck. I’ll use the rest to make the OEM cabinet interiors in the salon and galley pretty. The white paint Chris Craft used didn’t look very good when it was new, and it looks pretty shabby almost 50 years later. The missus and I prefer to see pretty wood on the inside of cabinets, so that’ll be a great spot to use up the leftovers. The aft salon cabinet looks much better with the veneer panels cut and fitted. I did the galley cabinet interior next.
The big pile of 1/8″ mahogany plywood scraps
The ugly galley cabinet
Removing the fiddles took more time than I expected
The fiddles were screwed to the plywood shelf, puttied over, and the cabinet was painted a very long time ago. Unfortunately, two of the screws are back behind the cabinet face panel. Getting them out without breaking anything was a bit of a challenge.
One down, one to go
The plywood pile gets smaller
One box down…
None of the angles in here are 90°, which makes no sense because the cabinet is basically rectangular. Chris Craft was a production boat maker (the largest in the world at the time), but still…you’d think they could have cut the panels square. Getting nice, tight panel joints is much more challenging when nothing is square.
Middle box is done…on to the bottom
The bottom of the bottom box is framed out with ugly cleats
Filling it in with scrap Douglas fir plywood will make for a nice, flat bottom
The pile of 1/8″ mahogany gets smaller by the day!
Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Making the Ugly Salon Forward Cabinet Pretty
1969chriscraftroamer46 
Look’n Good!!
Sorry for the delayed response but…thanks Kent!