1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Making the Aft Stateroom Starboard Fascia Board

I’ve been juggling even more things than usual recently, and I was remiss in posting articles this week not out of laziness but because I left the camera on the boat. Whata ya gonna do? It’s a 50 mile round-trip at the very least to retrieve the camera, and it’s not like I’m being lavishly compensated for my efforts (thank you from the bottom of my heart who have hit the tip jar) for Anyway, in my last post I took some big mahogany moldings I’d had stacked below the boat to a local wood shop and resawed them down to 5/8″ boards, which I then ran through my jointer and knocked them down to 1/2″. Next I took the original starboard-side Chris Craft fascia board and used it as a pattern on one of my pretty new boards. The results turned out quite nice.

The original fascia panel on a new board

The old fascia board was painted ugly white and didn’t fit well to the new mahogany walls

I considered running it through the thickness planer to knock the white paint off, because it’s pretty mahogany underneath. But the fit was not good enough, so I used it as a pattern instead.

It fits fairly well everywhere else, so it’ll make a fine pattern

Scribing off the pattern onto the new board

EurekaZone tracksaw tracks make long cuts truing the board super easy

This board needs to be cut with decreasing width from leading to following edge because the aft deck is canted so any water that comes in will run aft…the fascia board gets skinnier as it runs aft.

Round the edge with my router

Scribe the other side and get ready to cut

Need to add some material on this end to fill a gap

Looking good!

Mahogany porn

This is going to be really beautiful once it’s varnished. I wonder why Chris Craft painted them all white?

Looks good!

Better fit on the leading edge

I use a hand plane to knock off a bit of excess that’s causing a gap

That’s more like it

I’ve been pondering access hatches for the fuel fills on either side

Not that I think I’ll ever have to see these again once the cabinetry’s done back here, but the next poor sucker that owns this boat will probably appreciate having access to those fuel fill hose clamps that doesn’t involve a chainsaw.

Maybe I’ve been overthinking this…

Yup…I was definitely overthinking it

That’ll definitely work

I can just use 19mm mahogany plywood and cut a rectangular hole there. I’ve already got a stash of hatch moldings made, varnished, and ready to cut to fit. All I’ll have to do is make a little corner molding to cover the open plywood end. Easy peasy.

It’s funny…a decade ago, I’d never made cabinet moldings. I didn’t have the tools. If you asked me to make one, I might have had an inkling for how to proceed, but I probably would have told you to go find a pro. If I tried to do it myself, it probably wouldn’t have ended nicely. But now…easy peasy. That’s funny.

That’s the thing about this refit. It’s completely bananas, economically. I mean, a new 46′ twin Cummins turbodiesel boat would cost a pretty penny, but this is an old Chris Craft. I’m into it many times over what they sell for these days. Then again, this isn’t just any old Chris Craft. This little fascia board I made, which I’ll finish in ICA two-part polyurethane, is one of many upgrades over the original white primer and painted mahogany that Chris Craft did back in the day. It’ll look a lot nicer than the original (to the missus and me, anyway). but still….this refit is still economically nuts.

On the other hand, this refit is also a wonderful burden. And I think people–human beings–we need burdens. A soft life makes a soft mind and body. My 9-to-5 job is intellectually engaging, but there’s no craft to it. I’m constantly learning new things in my job, but they’re all the same kind of thing. With this Roamer project, I learned to TIG weld, ferchrissakes…stainless or aluminum! And the thought of making cabinets went from ‘let’s see if we can find a reputable professional’ a decade ago to ‘easy peasy’ today.

This refit is both bananas and a terrific burden…and I’d argue that maybe it’s more the latter than the former. I’d love to see comments from people who have  projects that make zero sense economically, but the craft or physical, intellectual…maybe even spiritual…benefits make it well worth the investment. And how do you explain to others about the benefits of your terrific burden?

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Making the Aft Stateroom Port Fascia Board