1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Galley Cabinets

In 2019, after varnishing the new galley bulkhead with ICA clear, I started building cabinets to mount to the bulkhead. I never got around to posting about them, but the ongoing arctic blast in 2022 has given me an opportunity to clear these things from my camera memory card.

Working on cabinets means I could pull a sheet of plywood out of the stack in the salon

The plywood stack is a progress-o-meter…when the stack is gone, the project will be done

I cut the panels for the upper cabinets, then finished the faces in ICA 2-part clear varnish

I have no idea what I’m doing, so I made the cabinet boxes in two parts

This being a boat, not much is square and I don’t have the cabinetmaking expertise to make things fit together well on a bench. So I instead cut the panels, dadoed the joint areas between panels, then drilled pocket screw holes for attaching the panels to the bulkhead so I could assemble them in place.

Time for the ten year-old, brand new Samsung to come out of the box

I wanted to see the fit to the fridge with my own eyes rather than just relying on measurements

You can see in the picture above that I sanded the ICA varnish off the bulkhead where the cabinet will attach.

Next, I wetted out the bulkhead and cabinet panel edges with epoxy

Wood flour-thickened epoxy is my preferred glue

First galley cabinet is glued and screwed to the bulkhead, and the panels are clamped together

The joints all looked good after I cleaned up the epoxy that squeezed out

I first used a small squeegee to scoop up the majority, then followed up by wiping the area with alcohol on a rag. After 2-3 passes, each time with a new piece of rag, all of the epoxy residue is gone.

More epoxy on the wetted out dado joint for the starboard cabinet panel

Clamp the next panel at 90° and go home

Next day, I wetted out the joint area with straight epoxy, then topped that with wood flour-thickened epoxy

That turned out pretty good!

That was a complex joint

I’ll eventually veneer this

The top looks great, but that varnish is going to get baked by the sun

Next, I fitted the side and bottom panels

I wetted out the joint areas on the bulkhead with epoxy, then applied wood flour-thickened glue

I saturated the panel edges with epoxy, then topped with the wood flour version

After using pocket screws to attach the glued panels, I left them to cure overnight.

Next day, the clamps came off

Fast forward to last week

This boat is insulated very well, but cold air was blasting in through this hole above the main breaker panel that I installed recently.

I cut some 1/2″ and 1/4″ panels to fill the void and cover the unattractive douglas fir marine plywood

They stay in place just with friction fit…for now

That keeps the cold air out, though I still need to insulate the back side of the panels.

That’ll look better when it’s done one day

But for now the priority is just keeping heat in the boat from the propane heater. So that’s a wrap for the current state of the galley upper cabinets.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing More Stainless