1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The Salon Entry Folding Door

I apologize for not keeping up on the blog recently. I’ve been dealing with a life-changing problem that’s been thrust upon me and the Roamer has been mostly put on hold while I deal with higher priorities. The timing for this sort of thing is never good, but with the current drama and the grief the boatyard imposed on me to vacate by April 1 I’m feeling a bit piled upon.

That said, I wrapped up two life-sucking issues this week, which gave me a brief reprieve. I figured I’d post an article during the lull before I dive into the next bit of non-Roamer unpleasantness.

When we first found the Roamer, the original bi-fold hatch to the salon from the aft deck had been replaced by an unattractive Dutch door/plexiglass entryway. The benefit of this approach is that you can walk into the salon upright by just twisting the door knob, just like any old doorway. There’s no hatch to push up and out of the way. But I think the Dutch door approach is ugly, and I wanted to go back to something closer to what Chris Craft did originally. As I eventually found out, the hard life this boat has had makes it challenging to stick with the original approach.

Here’s what we started with in 2008

What the hell was I thinking?

As you can see, the OEM salon door was still there when we got the boat. Somebody built the upper Dutch door, then enclosed it with mahogany and plexiglass. I always thought it was done for convenience’s sake…but I was wrong. Anyway, going back to something original would require making a bi-fold hatch to cover the horizontal opening to the dashboard leading to the salon. I’d like that to be in pretty mahogany. How hard could that be?

I’m using Tricel panels skinned with mahogany veneer for man-doors

I actually started making these panels a couple of years ago, but they’ve been sitting collecting dust until now. In the interim, I lost the memory card that had the pix of the basic panel fitting and applying the mahogany veneer. So what I’ve got here are very lightweight, dimensionally stable, 20mm thick panels with ribbon stripe mahogany on top and bottom. But with Tricel, you have to dig out the cardboard-like material that makes up the honeycomb core and replace it around the perimeter with solid stock in this sort of application. The edges of Tricel panels aren’t pretty at all, and hinge screws need something more substantial to bite into.

1″ deep mahogany stock will give hinge screws something to bite into

By the way, if you work with Tricel, a Fein saw or cheap Harbor Freight knockoff with the widest blade available makes quick work of removing the core material.

This block of mahogany leftovers will come in handy

Before epoxying the mahogany sticks in place, I wanted to apply some varnish to protect the ribbon stripe grain

Two coats of varnish, followed by gluing the sticks in place

Shrink wrap plastic doesn’t stick to epoxy, makes for easy clamp removal even if the epoxy squeezes out

Next day…not bad

That’s about right

Trim the edge

Next, mark off the hinges

Cut out the hinge area freehand with a router

Nice!

Second hinge fitted

Looking good!

I still need to trim the sides back, then I’ll make some mahogany pieces to cover the edges and fill the gap to the surrounding Matterhorn white dashboard. I also have to make a mahogany piece for the leading edge, but to do that I first need to install the door so everything fits nicely when it’s done.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The Salon Entry Door