1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Polishing More Side Deck Stanchions and Bow Railing

I went to my soon-to-be home port marina yesterday and signed an annual contract for the best slip in the joint, effective July 1, 2023. Electricity is included, and it’s 1/4 less than the land storage fees at the current marina in Deale, MD (under new management). Can’t wait to move the boat. Unfortunately, the surveyor was supposed to get his report to me by Wednesday, but now he’s saying he hopes to finish it this weekend. Then it has to clear my insurance company, so I don’t see how I can splash on Monday.

That said, I started polishing the side deck handrail stanchions in 2016 and followed up by polishing three more stanchions in 2019. This article covers me finishing the polish job on the the remainder, including the big bow deck stainless safety rails earlier in the spring of 2023. Even though they’re not mission critical for launching, I’m trying to get them installed while I still have the scaffolding around the boat.

I started with lots of dirty, scratched, and ugly stainless pipe

Some of the stanchions are new ones I made that have never been polished

My ShopSmith was the center of this polishing operation

I converted the machine to lathe mode for the straight stanchions

When I sanded the stainless in earlier efforts, I tilted the sander left and right, causing the pipe to roll back and forth on a wooden table top while I worked the sander up and down the length of the pipe. This time, I attached a pipe wall-mount fixture to the ShopSmith machine’s lathe faceplate, then threaded the stanchions into the fixture. On the opposite end, I installed a pointed lathe center then used a hole saw to cut a 7/8″ groove in a piece of 3/4″ plywood. Then I used a 1-1/4″ holesaw to remove that round piece with the groove in it, which I call a bushing. The stanchion pipe fits perfectly in the 7/8″ groove, and it’s naturally centered. I soaked the center hole in the plywood bushing with oil for lubrication, then used the quill (power head) feed handle to press the bushing home on the lathe center.

With the ShopSmith turning at it’s slowest setting, I started sanding with 220 or 400 grit, depending on how nasty each stanchion was.

I had a tray of water to wet the wet/dry sandpaper; this was 220 grit

I also tried using WD-40 to wet the sandpaper

There’s a professional polisher who has a youtube channel, and he highly recommends using WD-40 when sanding stainless in progressively finer grits. I have to say, it’s far messier than water and the paper doesn’t seem to last any longer. So I switched back to the tray of water.

400 grit with water lubrication

800 grit with water lubrication

1200 grit with water

Time for the buffer

I found that my plywood bushings would last for about four stanchions. When they wear too much, the stanchion goes off-center too easily and wobbles around too much.

Nice!

I repeated the process for all of the straight stanchions.

Polishing the bow rail was a much bigger challenge

I used a hole saw to make a 7/8″ hole in a 2×4, then I split the 2×4 down the middle to make two softwood jigs that I could use to clamp the bow rail to a table. The pine is super soft, so it doesn’t scratch even sections of the rail that I’d already polished. I’d clamp the rail down, then sand with progressive grits and polish, then move the jigs down and repeat the process.

The chromed bronze fittings dug some nasty scratches into the rail

Those are some deep scratches

80 grit flapwheel on a grinder made the worst of the scratches disappear

What I found is that these chromed bronze rail fittings are very particular about how you orient them on the rail tubes. Even the straight stanchion tubes can be challenging. If the fittings absolutely won’t go on the tube one way, try gently turning them around the tube. The Y fitting above makes deep gouges if you force it. But if you rotate it to just the right position, it slides by that area very smoothly. Once past that area, it hung up again. No problem: just rotate it 180° and it once again slides easily past that area. Every time it starts to hang up, stop, back up a bit, and rotate it until you find the sweet spot. That’s the only way you can install these without gouging the polished stainless tube.

My secret to polishing stainless is a tray of water

The wet/dry sandpaper seems to last 2-3 times longer when it’s lubricated.

220 grit

400 grit

1500 grit

Final polish with black emery compound

I repeated that process along the entire length of both bow rails. It took about six hours to do both, but I think it’ll be worth it.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing Side Deck Stanchions