1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Aft Stateroom Entryway Mahogany Panels

Before I splash the boat, I need to have my Boatamalan painter spray the interior with ICA polyurethane top coat. Before that can happen, the headliner has to be installed. And before THAT can happen, the plywood next to the headliner has to be pretty. But the panels at the entryway for the aft stateroom are anything but pretty.

There are at least six problems in this hot mess

1. it’s ugly
2. there’s an old HVAC supply hole cut in the bulkhead under the stairs

Problem 3: the bulkhead is curved

I made a door jamb that solves half of the problem with the curved bulkhead, but I still need to resolve the other half.

Problem 4: Chris Craft painted all of the beautiful mahogany white back here

Problem 5: The lower bulkhead has a small patch of rot

And problem #6: Chris Craft didn’t put these lower bulkheads in perpendicular to the floor. They screwed them in and pushed them into place against the aluminum framing (which warps a bit when heated during welding), then cut everything from the stairs to the cabinetry, to fit the warped panels. Fixing all of these sins is a big challenge.

Fortunately, I’ve got one more sheet of 1/8″ mahogany for this sort of thing.

First, I cut some 1/8″ mahogany panels to fit

The laundry closet door frame will butt up against the left edge of the new panel, which hides a whole bunch of ugly.

That looks better

It also works well with the new door jamb I made

This is gonna work!

Ugly, curved bulkhead? What ugly, curved bulkhead???

The other two panels look good, too!

I like it!

Next, I marked off the “curved zone”

The curved zone is where I’ll have to build up material so the new panel lays flat and perpendicular to the floor. The curve in the bulkhead is worst nearest the door opening. 18 inches over to the outboard side, there’s almost no curve at all.

The bottom of the bulkhead needed more than 1/4″ of material to build it up

I also used a router to knock off ~1/8″ from the top of the panel here. Chris Craft really didn’t care one jot about making these square.

Plywood scraps will be filler pieces

Filler pieces glued in place, roughed up, and ready for panel install

Next, wet out the back of the skinny plywood piece

Wood flour-thickened epoxy is the glue here

Conventional clamps hold the panel up top

Push sticks and other goofy clamps down below

Floor hatch makes for a big push stick!

Next day, panel 2 gets glued in place

I went through a lot of wood flour-thickened epoxy glue today

One more plywood filler panel saves on epoxy

Mahogany panel gets wetted out and topped with wood flour-thickened epoxy

More funky push-stick clamps here

I use shrink wrap plastic scraps when pressing pretty mahogany into epoxy. If any epoxy leaks through, it won’t stick to the plastic.

Push sticks in place, time to leave

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Aft Stateroom Entryway Mahogany Panels II