1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Final Sanding the Hull

My Boatamalan painter calls the topcoat of any paint job “the shiny.” It doesn’t matter if it’s Imron MS1 clear coat for exterior woodwork or an Awlgrip topcoat…it’s all “the shiny.” Finally, after more than 12 months of weekends stretching all the way back to February 2009, when we first started fairing the hull, it’s ready for the shiny.

Yesterday started at the crack of dawn. First, we sprayed a guide coat of flat black paint over the whole hull. Then we broke out the sanders,  fired up the air compressor, refrigerated air dryer and the five exhaust fans at the aft end of the tent and got to work.

Flat black guide coat sprayed and ready for sanding

More guide coat

The black guide coat tells you when you’ve sanded enough: when the black’s gone, you’re done. If you only sand until the black is gone, you’ll avoid putting divots in the faired surface. But we’ve found that there’s variety in the characteristics of rattle can paint. The stuff at large retailers tends to gum up the sandpaper no matter how well it’s cured, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re using paint that’s 99 cents per can or $3. Fortunately, the local hardware store is affiliated with the Best brand. Their el-cheapo rattle can flat black paint dries fast and doesn’t clog up the sandpaper.

Halfway done

We’ve been using Mirka Abranet sandpaper, which is very tough stuff, and at my painter’s suggestion I also bought a Mirka Ceros 6″ electric random orbital sander. It was the most expensive sander I’ve ever bought, but with it you can do about 50% more sanding than any of the air sanders in the same amount of time. It’s also extremely light, which is very important when working on a big hull like this one.

Sanded and almost ready for “the shiny”

By 3pm, the sanding was done…time to clean up. We blew off all of the loose dust that accumulated since we replaced the bungs on the mahogany toe rail, the last time we covered everything from the rub rail up with plastic. After two trips around with the blow gun, we carefully peeled back the plastic film covering everything on top. Then we blew it off once again. It was nice to see the boat with all the plastic off.

Shiny!

The last step was to wash the boat, the tent, and the scaffolding. We used soft sponges and plain water from a hose to scrub the freshly sanded primer, then used chamois (chamoises? chamoii???) to dry the whole thing.

Smooth and clean…ready for paint

Clean from top to bottom

By the time we were done, it was dark

Tent Model 9 is a great workshop

We left the fans running overnight to vent the humidity from washing the boat. Next we’ll tape it up and, if all goes well, spray shiny on the hull.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The Hull is Shiny!

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Final Prime Coat on the Hull

For the first time since February 2009, last night I packed away (hopefully forever ;-)) the leftover cabosil and 3M microballoons we used to make fairing compound, the Awlgrip High Build and Awlquik primers, all grits of longboard sandpaper and everything else having to do with fairing. We’re done with it. All that’s left to do on this paint job is cover the boat and spray the hull with Awlgrip 545 primer, then sand, cover the boat again and spray “the shiny” Awlcraft 2000 Matterhorn White. What follows are the steps between my installment of final longboarding the fairing compound on the hull and now.

Taped up the backside of the engine room vents

Plastic and tape stick very well to fresh primer

With the aft stateroom windows all freshly painted, it was much easier taping off the windows in preparation for spot priming with awlquik sprayable fairing compound.

Et voila! Awlquik sprayed!

The white areas are the Awlgrip 545 we put on the hull back in 2009. The yellow is the new Awlquik for areas that were still a bit too wavy.

Out came the longboards one last time

We used 220 grit Mirka sandpaper on 36″ boards to do the final fairing sanding. At this point, with a couple of patches to the Sharkskin plastic covering the parts of the boat that are already painted–the cabin top, aft enclosure, and non-skid on the decks–the hull is fair and ready for Awlgrip 545 final primer.

Et voila! Final primed in 545!

She looks very good sprayed all white again.

This weekend, if all goes as planned, we’ll sand the 545 with Mirka Abranet 320 grit, then blow off the dust, pull the dusty old plastic, wash the boat and tent, then cover everything again and spray “the shiny,” as the Chief Boatamalan* painter calls it. I’m off to the boatyard!

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Final Sanding on the Hull

*Boatamalan: portmanteau indicating highly skilled boat workers of Central American origin.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Aft Stateroom Windows II

With the plywood porthole surrounds finished, next I had to deal with the primer around the aluminum lip of  the aft window openings. When I removed the plywood, it became clear that there was bedding compound around each of the window openings that was now coated with primer. When the plywood came off, it took some of the bedding compound and primer with it, revealing some places where the primer wasn’t properly adhered to the aluminum.

See the little chip out of the primer?

That little chip came off with the bedding compound. Obviously, we didn’t do the prep work right in these areas when we first primed the boat in 2009. Better to catch it now than to have the paint fail in a few years.

Bedding compound was adhered well.

The tar-like bedding compound was hard stuff but peeled off of the aluminum with a scraper without too much work.

Another spot where the primer popped off

Peeling off more porthole sealants

This sealant was different than the tar-like stuff and came off very easily. The primer had adhered to the sealant very well, but underneath the sealant there was white powder on the aluminum lip. The paint at this joint would have probably failed pretty quickly.

Another chip that started out as just a crack at the edge of the aluminum

I put a razor blade to the crack and the chip above popped off. There was a dusting of aluminum oxide under the primer here. I’m guessing it got wet when the boat lay fallow after the paperwork SNAFU, and corrosion started to grow unseen.

Ground back to remove all corrosion.

The little crack that turned into a chip actually had primer failing around it for several inches. I found several of these while cleaning up the ten window openings. While I was working the grinder to get back to clean metal, I touched all of the edges of the aluminum window openings all the way around and also on the interior surfaces back to where the original primer and bitumastic coating were in good condition.

Next, I brushed on some Awlgrip Max Cor CF aluminum primer.

Per the Max Cor instructions, alumaprep and alodine treatment is not required in these areas when the aluminum is freshly prepped.

Another former chip coated with Max Cor CF

Max Cor primer outside, on the edge, and inside the window opening

It took me a whole day to remove the bedding compounds, fix the chips and apply primer, but it was well worth the effort. Now there is a monolithic layer of well adhered modern epoxy primer from the exterior of the boat over every surface where I’ll be bedding the portholes. Hopefully, this effort will pay off with many years of service from the shiny hull paint that’s going to be sprayed soon.

Next up on our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Final Prime Coat on the Hull

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Longboarding and Final Touch-ups on the Hull

With the exhaust system out of the way (for now), we focused on final longboarding and other detail work on the hull. Since I don’t want to make any cuts in the paint once it’s done, this means I have to drill out all of the holes for hardware and tap as necessary. For other holes in the hull sides, like thruhulls, I used an air deburring tool to remove excess filler. Then I applied Awlgrip Max Cor CF aluminum primer to the bare spots of aluminum inside the bores. This should help ensure that there is a continuous coating film from the coatings inside to the outside paint job, which in theory should help reduce the possibility of aluminum oxide forming and creeping under the paint, causing it to fail prematurely.

Stbd nav light cutout all cleaned out

aft bilge and shower pump thruhulls

Main engine room bilge pump outlet.

Stern light cutout

The original stern light was made of chromed pot metal that had corroded. I found a good, proper vintage replacement on ebay that was chromed bronze rather than pot metal, but it turned out to be slightly larger than the original. So it took quite a bit more work with the deburring tool to open up the cutout so it would fit. Once it was big enough that the light fixture would fit, I had to make it just a wee bit bigger in all dimensions to account for the thickness of the primer and paint we’ll apply.

Because aluminum oxide forms immediately when aluminum is exposed to atmospheric moisture and builds up over time, I wanted to reduce the amount of time the aluminum was exposed. As soon as I finished opening up each hole, I brushed some Max Cor CF inside.

Awlgrip Max Cor CF in each hole to protect the aluminum

Low spots on the hull got a touch of fairing compound

There were a dozen or so low spots we found when longboarding the hull, which we initially faired back in 2009. So we mixed up a small batch of homemade epoxy fairing compound thickened with cabosil and 3M microballoons. The base coating is Awlgrip 545 white that we applied in May 2009, so you can see the filler in the pic above and below because it’s slightly yellow from the 4:1 fast hardener we used.

A few more low spots at the bow

The flare of the bow had a low spot along a weld

Former port exhaust outlet hole

Former stbd exhaust outlet hole

Now all we have to do is longboard the patched areas and apply some Awlquik sprayable fairing compound in spots. Once that’s longboarded smooth, we’ll be ready for the final coat of Awlgrip 545 primer. Gotta move on this…summer is over and the cold winter is coming.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Aft Stateroom Windows

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Re-bunging the Mahogany Toe Rail

I think the name of this boat should be “Three steps forward, one step back.”

Over the summer of 2013, we sprayed “the shiny” on the hardtop, the cabin top, the helm dashboard, and the aft enclosure; the non-skid was done, too. Before painting the shiny Matterhorn White Awlcraft 2000, the Boatamalan painter had already sprayed the mahogany toe rail with eight coats of Imron MS1 High Gloss Clear. The last step to finish the shiny paintwork from the rub rail up was to sand the mahogany toe rail perfectly flat with 320 grit Mirka Abranet and spray the final 2~3 coats of MS1. But when I pulled the protective plastic from the toe rail after the Awlgrip spraying was done, it became apparent there was a problem: The bungs that cover the 1/4-20 machine screws that mechanically fasten the mahogany to the deck needed to be replaced.

My instructions to the woodworker who put the bungs in were explicit: make sure the glue line is solid. If there’s any gap in the glue line, water will eventually wick in and cause trouble in the mahogany and maybe even the aluminum below.

But when the woodworker was done, epoxy didn’t fill the joint all the way to the top. With regular varnish, you can keep pushing it into the bungs until they finally fill up. But no matter how much the painter flowed out the MS1 while spraying the initial coats, it simply wouldn’t fill the space between the bungs and the holes into which they were driven. I recently figured out the reason why: the woodworker had only fully wetted 5 bungs with epoxy out of the 198 bungs in the rail. The rest were mostly held in place by friction. All of the those had to be replaced or the MS1 would fail in no time.

It looked pretty good from the top.

But when you looked closer, the circles around the bungs became more apparent.

White circles around each bung are from dust catching in deep crevices

We saw the rings around the bungs when the MS1 cured on the rail but thought that we could simply fill the void by applying MS1 to the gaps with a syringe. Then we’d sand it flat and spray the last coats of MS1.  But the more I thought about it, the more concerned I became that maybe the woodworker hadn’t used enough epoxy to wet out the bungs and the holes they were going into before driving the bungs home. I confirmed this concern when I pushed on a bung and it slid down into the hole! Upon removal, we found zero evidence of any glue at all! Temperature changes would have popped the bungs over time, and water would have found its way into the toe rail mahogany to cause rot and the aluminum below it, creating aluminum oxide that would push the paint off.

Out came the bungs!

This stuff is disheartening. The woodworker who did this joins the list of highly paid clowns (with great references!) whose work has to be redone.

All of the holes must be precisely drilled.

It is much more difficult to remove bungs and replace them and have it look right than it is to simply do it right the first time.

Two good bungs! Yea!!

Removing and replacing the bungs took three days, but because I can only work on weekends that translates to two weeks. 😦

Resprayed with MS1

The joy of seeing the shiny mahogany toe rail is lost a bit by the fact that it had to be done twice. All you can do is sigh and move on.

Absolutely, perfectly mirror smooth

Done

With all surfaces above the rub rail now painted and done, the only thing left paint-wise is to do the final longboarding on the hull, prime with Awlgrip 545, final sand and shoot.

Next up on our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Exhaust

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: “The Shiny” Out to the Rub Rail

With the exterior from the decks up painted with “the shiny” the next steps involves painting the fillet outboard of the mahogany toe rail to the upper rub rail. The hull at the bow is about eight feet tall, so without mid-height scaffolding it’s impossible to see over the upper rub rail to paint. But mid-height scaffolding  would get in the way of painting the lower portions of the hull, so we have to break this up into two parts…it’s always something.

Anyway, we sanded the Alwgrip 545 primer on the fillet and rub rail with 320 grit Mirka Abranet, then wiped everything down and taped it off for “the shiny,” which is what my Boatamalan painter calls shiny top coat paint.

The mahogany toe rail was still taped off from the earlier paint work.

The shiny, the non-skid and the bright toe rail really look good!

Nice knot.

We taped off the toe rail using 3M 233+ tape and Sharkskin 20-foot wide masking film.

Almost ready for paint.

It’s important to keep the plastic tensioned so it doesn’t flop around and stir up dust when the painter comes by shooting the top coat. But, you have to be careful not to put too much tension on it…the Sharkskin tears easily.

Done!

We used 3M foam tape for the blend area at the scupper, then wetted down the scaffolding and got to painting. Once again, Tent Model IX provided a nice, nearly dust-free environment. That’s a wrap for the upper paint work. All that remains is to longboard the hull once more, apply a bit of primer to some low spots, then we’ll put shiny on the hull!

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Re-bunging the Mahogany Toe Rail

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Prepping for non-skid

With the shiny Awlcraft 2000 Matterhorn White on the cabin top, helm dashboard, and aft enclosure, the next step is to put non-skid on the decks. Since we’re using Awlgrip Topcoat for the non-skid paint base, the resulting finish will be extremely durable. That, in combination with the sand-like properties of the non-skid itself, makes it extremely difficult to remove any overspray that might happen. While applying the non-skid with a roller is possible, it tends to make for clumpy results. Rolling and tipping the paint then tossing handfuls of non-skid sand in the air  so it falls on the wet paint is another technique, but the results tend to be somewhat inconsistent.

When spraying non-skid, which is what the Boatamalans do, the tape job must be perfect. We gave it our best shot.

3M foam masking tape made a flawless blend

I started the day at 6AM, pulling some of the tape and plastic from the aft enclosure spray job. I have to say, the 3M foam tape really does make nearly invisible blend lines.

Tools of the trade: 3M hand masking film, 233+ tape and a taping machine

3M hand masking film is a time saver like you wouldn’t believe. I’d used paper taping machines before for small jobs (like whole cars), but for jobs like this you need special machines that dispense 90-foot rolls of plastic in 24, 48, 72 and 99″ widths with the tape attached as it comes off the roll.

Everything you don’t want dusted with non-skid MUST be covered.

It was 93* outside the tent and 103* inside in spite of having all of the vents open and fans on. But inside the helm area with all the plastic taped in place it was 123*. Sure would have been nice to have this done in May, as planned…

Next, I set to work on the “painter’s path.”

It’s been a  real learning experience seeing how the chief Boatamalan choreographs the spray job. We go through the whole thing, with him waving his arm around as if he’s spraying. When he runs into a problem–like “painted into a corner” or “can’t reach over there before the paint flashes and leaves a dry patch”–he goes back a few steps and tries it again until he’s got it all worked out. Then I come in with the blue diamond-patterned plastic and make the walking path he’ll follow.

Meanwhile, the Boatamalan tape specialist performs his magic.

The guy that does the taping is amazing. His is truly a singular skill. Using 1″ 3M fine line tape and a small measuring stick, he lays the tape perfectly along the edge of the fillets. Then, once all the straight lines are laid down, he comes back with a variety of circular objects (new and used tape rolls and a bottle of Awl Grip activator), a pencil and a razor blade and cuts all of the rounded corners in the tape. The guy’s a genius!

Perfect radii by a true master

Yes, the left side curve in the pic above is, in fact, the exact same radius as the outside of a half-used roll of tape. The right side is patterned on the Awl Grip activator bottle bottom (the cap of the bottle is an entirely different size…he used that elsewhere)  😉

Non-skid mapped out on the mini deck over the transom

Flagstaff mount goes in the center and two vents to either side.

3/4″ plywood scraps cover the bow deck hatch hole

The center stripe will be shiny; the outer sections and side decks will be non-skid.

Cabin top non-skid corners are nicely radiused.

Nice symmetry

Done taping.

There will be a center stripe of shiny on the bow deck, which will break up the non-skid without compromising safety too much. The shiny there will also give a good surface to bed the hatch, windlass and Samson post.

On the bow seat, we decided to put the non-skid step along the center line to match the width of the shiny on the bow. Again, it’s a good compromise of aesthetics, utility and safety.

Just need to apply two strips of 2″ tape to cover the gap between the fine line tape and plastic masking film.

The last shot before I left the boat at 6pm on Labor Day.

Labor Day, indeed. I must have lost 10lbs of water weight sweating in that tent…which does NOT make it easier to tape, btw!

The boat is pretty much all taped up and ready to go though. The next step will be to sand the shiny up to the the tape lines with Mirka Abranet 320 grit, then blow off the dust, wipe everything down and get to spraying non-skid.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Non-skid!

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Painting “the Shiny” on the Aft Enclosure

6:30AM Sunday morning, August  18, 2013. All of the prep work we did on Saturday made it relatively easy to paint today. The weather was perfect, too: 70*F and light rain (so absolutely no dust or bugs flying around).

The stairs and scaffolding got covered with heavy plastic.

This diamond tread blue plastic (Cover Guard Fire Rated Temporary Protection) is outstanding for big paint projects. Wet overspray on the plastic doesn’t grab ahold of your booties when  you step on it. Tape sticks to it very well and it does a good  job protecting finished surfaces, too.

3M hand masking film protects the aft deck interior that got painted the day before.

It also helps seal up the hull, which is still very dusty. We don’t want the dust from below to end up on the new paint above.

Like a freakin’ mirror, or WHAT??? 🙂

These pix show the cockpit interior surfaces we painted on Saturday. To protect the fresh paint on the interior surfaces of the window frames when we paint the exterior today, we’re using 3M blue tape. The green tape is 3M +233, which sticks very well and does a very good job at keeping the new paint from flowing under the tape. But, it’s so tenacious it can cause fresh paint to lift when you remove it.

You could floss your teeth in that reflection!

The mahogany moldings got a fresh layer of 3M +233 tape, too.

Sharkskin plastic film protects the new paint on the dashboard.

Sharkskin and 3M hand masking films protect “the shiny” on the cabin top

Aft window openings are taped up with 3M hand masking film, too.

Transition from the shiny side deck to the soon-to-be-shiny aft enclosure.

The blend area on the side deck

3M Foam Tape is a very cool product.

This 3M foam masking tape makes blend lines vanish. I know some old techniques for accomplishing the same basic thing, but the results with this product are much, much better.

More foam tape at the helm station door openings

The door uprights got painted when we put the shiny on the cabin top. The foam tape should make the transition disappear when the helm hardtop gets painted. With the taping done, we blew off the primed surfaces and wiped everything down with Awl Grip pre-cleaner. I also spritzed a bit of water around the aft deck and on the inside walls of the tent and scaffolding to control dust. Then we put new filters on the inlet vents and exhaust fans, fired up the fresh air system, donned space suits and got to spraying.

The end result is absolutely gorgeous, if I do say so myself. 🙂

Shiny!!! 🙂

Props to the Boatamalans for their outstanding work.

Excellent gloss

I have to say that the window frames turned out pretty good, especially since they were an afterthought I came up with in a bit of a panic after finding…irregularities in the way the fabricator welded the aft enclosure together.

Urethane glazing sealant should stick well to the shiny frames

3M foam tape at the transition point on the deck

The fillets look nice, too.

Nice shine on the hardtop overhang.

Now I just need a windshield…soon.

More overhang and the foam tape transition point.

Port side with the masking film still in place.

Check out that reflection!

That’s one very extremely fair aluminum enclosure panel.

Again, props to the Boatamalans for their outstanding work.

Super clean paint all around.

The chief Boatamalan even commented that this paint job is cleaner than what they accomplish at Weaver Boatworks. It helps to have a small crew, with nobody making dust or opening doors to change the air flow characteristics in the middle of the job.

Niiiiiice 🙂

You’d never know there was a seam in the middle of that big panel

That’s pretty much a wrap for the shiny above the rub rail. While the whole boat is taped up and covered with plastic, we’ll try and knock out the nonskid on the decks and cabin top and apply the shiny to the fillets on the outside of the toe rail. Then we move on to the hull itself.

Unfortunately (for me, anyway) the Boatamalans are very busy at their day jobs and won’t be able to work on my project for a while. This is more of that butterfly effect I wrote about before. Damn that mechanic for falling so far off schedule and pushing everything back.

Next up on our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Window Patterns.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Painting “the Shiny” on the Helm Dashboard

6AM Saturday morning, August  17, 2013. The clamps are off of the mahogany moldings I put on the aft enclosure the night before. The Boatamalan crew shows up one by one, and by 7am everybody is either working a sander or hand sanding the final coat of Awl Grip 545 primer on the aft deck enclosure and dashboard. Today, Sunday, August 18, 2013, we’re putting the shiny on the dashboard.

Lots of corners on the inside of the window frames means lots of hand sanding.

Aft enclosure mahogany moldings are nicely taped off and the enclosure is sanded smooth.

The dashboard is sanded smooth with 320 grit Mirka Abranet.

After all the sanding is done, we removed all of the old plastic covering the boat because it harbors dust in every nook and cranny. Then we washed the boat and the inside walls and structure of the tent, leaving the scaffolding dripping wet to control any dust that remains. We covered everything in Sharkskin plastic and 3M hand masking film.

You go through lots of tape and plastic on a job like this.

In addition to painting the dashboard, we’re also doing the inside of the aft enclosure window frames today.

We’re also taping areas in preparation for the aft enclosure paint job tomorrow.

The last step was to put filters on the inlet vents and exhaust fans, fire up the fresh air system, don space suits and get to spraying.

Flaps up means air is moving through the tent.

The exhaust fan filters we’re using really do an excellent job of catching overspray. The stink still comes through, but that’s about it. The air inlet vents are at the front of the boat and five exhaust fans are on the back, which gives very good flow to quickly remove overspray. If the overspray isn’t evacuated from the tent fast enough, it can land on the skin that quickly forms on the surface of the paint film, causing the paint to lose its shine.

This paint has zero problems with the shine. 😉

The dashboard and instrument pod in Awl Craft 2000 Matterhorn White.

“The shiny” on the visible inside surfaces of the aft enclosure is very…shiny

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Painting “the Shiny” on the Aft Enclosure.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Shiny Mahogany Moldings on the Aft Enclosure

When the lead Boatamalan* talks about painting Awl Grip top coats, he refers to it as “the shiny.” He’s also quick to point out that painting a boat is a complicated thing. It’s not like a car or house where you tape off the bits you don’t want coated and do the whole thing in one go.

Boatamalan: portmanteau indicating highly skilled boat workers of Central American origin. 😉

We started out by painting the shiny and non-skid on the hardtop back in early May 2013. After a scorching mid-summer hiatus, we put Imron MS1 High Gloss Clear on the mahogany toe rail, then taped it off and put  shiny on the cabin top and side decks in early August. Then we taped off all of the painted areas again and covered them with 20′ wide Sharkskin plastic film before priming the aft enclosure; we’d already primed the helm dashboard back in May. This leaves only three areas that still need the shiny: the hull, which we’ll do last, the dashboard and the aft enclosure.

Last weekend, we knocked out two of the three. 😉

But before we could paint “the shiny,” I had to install a couple of mahogany moldings.

In preparation for painting on Saturday and Sunday, on Friday afternoon I went to the boat to install some mahogany trim pieces that cover the seam between the exterior panels of the aft enclosure and the 1″ square tube 6061 aluminum framing. The panels were stitch welded to the framing, which leaves the seam exposed to the weather. I’d already filled the seams with epoxy and faired them flat, but I wanted to cover the seams entirely to ensure water could never find its way into the seam. I also wanted to round off the corners to protect the canvas that will eventually enclose the aft deck.

So I made up some molding pieces out of African mahogany and had the Boatamalans seal them on all sides with West System epoxy resin and 207 Special Clear Hardener. With the end grain and all faces sealed in epoxy, the Boatamalans then sanded the moldings and sprayed them with eight coats of Imron MS1 High Gloss Clear.

Epoxy bonding mahogany trim to the aft enclosure

You can never have too many clamps…I need more.

I’m using the same fastener-less approach to bond these mahogany pieces to the enclosure panels as Weaver Boatworks uses to bond the teak toe rails to their multi-million dollar sportfish boats: thickened epoxy and lots of clamps. As the epoxy squeezes out of the joint, I removed it with a plastic scraper. Then, just before the epoxy kicks off, I went over the joint with lacquer thinner on a soft rag to remove any remaining epoxy residue. This last step is absolutely critical, because Awl Grip 545 primer is much softer than the epoxy. There’s no way to sand excess epoxy off without going through the surrounding primer first.

Need more clamps!

With the epoxy kicked off on the port side, I repeated the process on the starboard. Definitely need more clamps for this kind of work.

Good looking mahogany!

I finished the day at 9pm then came back at 6AM the following day to remove the clamps and tape in preparation for the next step.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Painting the Shiny on the Helm Dashboard.