With the salon, V-berth, and aft stateroom headliners installed, the last space on the boat that needs Whisper Wall is the aft deck. As you know from the earlier posts, before the headliner track can be installed, the surfaces next to the headliner have to be pretty much finished and done. There’s some ugliness that desperately needs covering on the aft deck, and I can’t think of a better way to do that than with some solid mahogany stock. Fortunately, I’ve had a pile of rough cut mahogany boards stickered under the boat since…gad…it’s been ten years!
8/4 B-grade mahogany planks have been sitting under the boat since 2009
At a buck per foot, I couldn’t pass up a load of 8/4 mahogany boards, even if they were B-grade. There was some obvious fall-damage to these two boards, where the tree fractured when it was brought down, but there’s plenty of material to work with so I’m pretty sure it’ll still work out to be a bargain even if some of the chunks aren’t going to be useful on this refit. At 13 and 14-feet respectively, they were a bit of a challenge moving to Weaver Boatworks with my little pickup. Mr. Weaver graciously agreed to run my lumber through his resaw machine.
What a difference the right tool makes
Board 1 is ready to go
Board 2 is next
8/4 board split in two
Wood porn on public display back at the boatyard
Dang…that’s some pretty lumber
Nice grain…too bad it’s split lengthwise here
The boards are wide enough that even where it’s split, there’s still good lumber that can be salvaged from it.
Sweet grain here
Too bad that eye has a crack through it
It’s still pretty stuff
This part’s a hot mess
But again, that’s two inches of cracked wood on a 12″ board that’ll make somebody nice turning stock. That means there’s ten usable inches worth of board.
That’s what I’m talkin’ about
This end looks very nice
Chop everything up into useful pieces
Six feet of beautiful but cracked mahogany
If I was into making music boxes or wooden pens, this would be a great find. But this cracked 6′ board doesn’t have a place on this boat right now. Maybe it’ll be useful somewhere else, so I’ll put it back in the wood pile without more machining.
That’s a shame, but it’ll come in handy somewhere
Back in the woodshop, I ran the boards through my MiniMax FS35 jointer
That cleaned up real nice
Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: V-berth Bed Surround Padded Headliner
1969chriscraftroamer46 
You could try some of the new “superglue specifically designed for woodworkers” on some of the cracks. It’s very thin and designed for minor cracks. You flow it into the crack and clamp quickly: it dries in seconds
Thanks for the suggestion, Paul, but there was enough pretty stuff without cracks for what I’ve got coming up. If I need to use any cracked boards, I’ll probably go with epoxy and wood flour to fill and glue them. I’ve heard some of the new superglues are terrific at stopping grain cracks once they begin.
Cheers,
Q