1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Bow Hatch…or not.

The short-term plan is to keep working toward splashing the boat this fall and bringing it around to my home port. I could get a lot of things done in the two hours I waste every time I commute to and from the Roamer. Though the propellers and shafts are installed, as are the rudders, it was too cold over the winter to even think about handling the engines and finishing up their installation. Instead, I’ve been focusing on getting major structural work done, like installing the aft stateroom walls. I’m also working on sealing up the exterior, which will include installing the bow hatch and windlass on the foredeck. I need to install the portholes in the V-berth and aft stateroom. But before I can install the windows, I have to install the interior wall panels around all of the porthole openings, since the panels fill a 1/4″ gap between the portholes when they’re fully installed and the window opening. And before I install those interior panels, I need to get spray foam insulation on the hull and underside of the decks. I’ll put polyester nonwoven fabric insulation on the back-side of every wooden interior panel that faces the hull to keep conditioned air on the inside of the boat. Somewhere along the way, I’ll install the engine beds, reposition the engines with the gantry, and get the engines hooked up.

But first, I need to get the boat weatherproof and that means the bow hatch has to get installed.

The 2×4 post that supports the “backbone” of the Tent Model X has to be relocated.

I never removed the stainless flashing around the hatch opening because I figured I’d get to it when I installed the hatch. The portion of the plywood I could see behind the headliner looked solid, so taking it apart just wasn’t a priority. Turns out it should have been.

Corrosion on the flashing…first sign of trouble

When I was removing the aluminum trim along the bottom of the stainless flashing, I could see that the aluminum was corroded but assumed that was just from condensation and exposure to dissimilar metal over the years. The rust on the stainless in the same areas had me a bit more concerned…and rightly so.

Houston, we have a problem.

My guess is that the sealant gave up a long time ago. Water wicked down the screws that fastened the hatch to the deck and destroyed the plywood below.

Completely rotten on one side, and solid on the other

You can easily tell where the screws leaked and where they didn’t. The problem now is that, in addition to the screws that fastened the hatch to the deck, there are screws around the perimeter of the opening that secure the plywood to the underside of the deck. When we faired the foredeck we went right over the top of those screws, which are now safely entombed in fairing compound, Awlquik, 545, and that beautiful Awlcraft Matterhorn white. If I jostle any of those screws, it could pop the fairing compound and paint loose, and that would be very bad. Time to prep for surgery.

First, I pulled down the rotten wood by the handful

Makita die grinder and a cutoff wheel ought to do the trick on the screws

Compromised plywood successfully removed

It turns out that Chris Craft used silicon bronze screws to fasten the plywood to the aluminum deck. That’s a recipe for a corrosion disaster that I won’t be repeating.

Another rotten corner, but with solid wood on either side

Completely solid plywood here

Bitumastic coating slightly compromised around certain screw holes

Bitumastic coating not compromised where the plywood was solid

So, clearly the screws and bedding compound were the weak link in the OE hatch install. I think I’ve got a better approach for the refit.

The hatch fits the cutout

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Wrapping Up the Bow Hatch Installation

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Reassembling the Bow Hatch

With the hatch parts and portholes back from the paint shop, I put the hatch back together.

Clear threads, then add Tefgel

Originally, Chris Craft didn’t even prime these hatches on the interior surfaces. Corrosion between the cast aluminum and stainless screws made it very difficult to disassemble. I don’t plan on ever taking this hatch apart again, but the Tefgel should help keep corrosion from starting under the paint. It’ll also make it easier for the next owner when it comes time to paint the boat again.

More Tefgel on the hinge pins

Little silicone pads that came with the aft deck glass worked well to protect the paint from the Channel Lock pliers I used to drive the pins home.

Hinge reassembled

Slick Strip should make a smooth sliding vent

I’ve had several Chris Craft cruisers, all of which came with the same cast aluminum hatch, and the vent was stuck open on every one of them. In addition to painting the entire hatch, including all contact surfaces, I’m also going to try putting Slick Strip (adhesive-backed UHMW plastic) on all sliding surfaces. Hopefully, the vent will work for as long as we own the boat.

Slick Strip sticks well to new paint

Slick Strip for the fastener slot

Tefgel for the screws, Slick Strips for the sliders

Good lookin’ hinges and vent slider

More Tefgel on the hatch scoop grille screws

Done!

I plan to replace the original white glass with grey tinted to match the other windows and portholes. I’ll order all of the glass at the same time, but I’m not quite ready to place the order. I won’t know the final size or shape of the helm side windows until the helm windshield is installed. That’s coming along, but I’m having…issues.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Transom Steps

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: (previously) Hateful Portlights and Bow Hatch Out and Back from the Paint Shop

Things have been busy, so I haven’t been posting as much as I probably should. But lots of stuff has been going on behind the scenes, including some excellent progress on the hateful portlights and bow hatch.

Old portlights with lots of busted, evil screws

It wasn’t just the hundreds of stainless screws that broke off in the cast aluminum frames that were a pain, the gooey butyl they used to seal the portlights (sort of) to the hull added to the challenge. Once the screws were out and the butyl removed, I sent the whole shebang out to be blasted in preparation for paint.

Box o’ blasted portlights

The old cast aluminum cleaned up pretty good. Turns out the hardest thing to remove was that DAP-like window sealant that had hardened. The blaster called and said the aluminum was softer than the hard sealant. I thought about it for a while and remembered that some of the old sealants were oil-based…linseed or some such. So I recommended putting some vegetable oil on the stuff that just wasn’t coming off. The blaster called back two days later to report that the oil did the trick, softening up the rick-hard sealant.

V-berth portholes were galvanized steel!

I wasn’t sure what material the V-berth round portholes were made of, though it was obvious from the weight they weren’t aluminum. I also knew paint didn’t stick to them at all. Turned out they were heavily galvanized steel. We’ll find out if modern epoxy and urethane coatings work and look better than the ol’ zinc on steel.

Shiny bow hatch bits n’ pieces are ready for coating

We used the same process on all of these aluminum parts as the rest of the boat: mechanically prep the surface with blasting, then Alumaprep and Alodine, followed by Awlgrip Max Cor CF, 545, and then Awlcraft 2000.

Et voila! Shiny portholes!

Unhateful portlights!

The interior-facing parts are white, while the exterior screen flanges match the blue of the exterior accent stripe.

Scha—-weeet!

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Reassembling the Bow Hatch.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Disassembling the Bow Hatch

Consistent with the theme of getting the boat ready for splashing later this year, I dug into the original, cast aluminum bow deck hatch to get it ready for paint. These hatches, which were were used on Chris Craft Cruisers from the 1960s and ’70s and manufactured by Bomar, I believe, have a shape that’s reminiscent of hood scoops used on muscle cars of the same era. I could have gone with a new hatch, but I like the period-correct parts. But like the original portlights and other old boat parts I’m keeping through this refit, this hatch was a real piece of work to get apart.

Your basic 1969 Chris Craft bow deck hatch

About half of the screws came out willingly, but only after weeks of applying penetrating oil to each one.

Lotsa busted screws that came out with the help of some welding

To remove: weld nuts to screw heads

The combination of heat from welding and a blast of electricity coming through the aluminum hatch body, where the ground was attached, and into the threads of the screws effectively breaks the bond that holds the screws and kept them from loosening up.

The first three screws to come out

Everywhere you see black soot, it’s from a little zap with the welder to attach a nut. With the screws out, the pieces come right apart.

The grill casting looks really good

What surprised me right away was that the hatch component parts were not primed or painted except for the areas that are visible. This is the same approach Chris Craft/Bomar used with the original portlights, and I think it encourages corrosion.

With the grill removed, the hatch top piece comes off easily

Again, there’s no paint or primer on the underside of the casting. While aluminum oxide is super tough stuff, I feel the component needs to either be fully bare or fully barrier coated. When the outside is coated but the inside isn’t, the paint line provides a path for aluminum oxide to creep under the exterior coating and make a mess of things.

Threads in the cast housing looks surprisingly good

Next, drive out roll pins and separate the hatch halves

Glass out from the underside of the hatch top

You can see some of the original DAP-like window sealant that remains. The fact that it’s only adhered in a few spots tells me water had no trouble seeping between the hatch and glass.

Again, window sealant only adheres in a few spots

That DAP-like sealant is hard as a [sedimentary] rock

Dirt on the glass retainer ring shows water was getting in.

Sealant? What sealant?

The vent that never moves!

I’ve had three big Chris Craft cruisers with this style of hatch, and not one of them had a functioning vent. The sheet metal vent closer thingies on all of them were stuck in place. Now I know why: they were each held in place with four plain steel screws. Just a wee bit of corrosion and they’d stick solid. But there’s more…

Not exactly a smooth surface for a vent closer thingy to slide on

Again, the parts you can’t see get no primer or paint…it’s just bare cast aluminum. BUT when they coated the outside, some of that primer and paint ran inside between the hatch and the vent closer thingy, effectively gluing them together.

My plan is to remove the excess paint from the outside, then sandblast and treat all of the hatch components with Alumiprep. Then I’ll send them over to the Boatamalan painter for Awlgrip Max Cor aluminum primer and AwlCraft 2000 paint to match the exterior. Once I get them back, I’ll apply Slick Strips to separate the cast aluminum hatch from the vent closer thingy. Slick Strip is an HDPE tape that makes parts slide very smoothly. I’ve used it before to solve a grinding salon slider door on my Commander 42. It should work perfectly here, too.

50 grit on a sander removes three layers of paint

Minor pitting in the casting, which should fill just fine with Awlquik

Casting imperfection

It’s a bit surprising how many casting imperfections Chris Craft and Bomar tolerated back in the day. This was an air bubble, by the looks of it, and it was just painted over.

With the hatch disassembled, the next step is sandblasting. I’ve been holding off on blasting because I wanted to do it all in one go, but it was just too cold over the winter. Now, with the portlights and hatch all disassembled, I’m almost ready to get ‘er done.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Aft Cabin Floors

Oh, and please check out the page where I post all of my items For Sale: Refit Parts, Tools, Supplies & Leftovers.

 

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Exhaust IV

Back in September 2012, I started working on the exhaust system. We’re going with side exhaust at the engine room rather than using the interior space consuming, 15-foot long run of corrosion-prone aluminum pipe that exits out the transom  in the original configuration. Waterlift mufflers should also make for a very quiet ride compared to the originals. By early October, the remaining components for the exhaust system were done and ready for the paint shop. The next step was to decommission the old system. The last thing to do before assembling the exhaust was to get the bits and pieces to the paint shop.

Exhaust bits on the way to the paint shop

There were bits of fiberglass sticking out from the mufflers, and they’re razor sharp. The paint Centek uses on their mufflers isn’t the greatest, either, and the FRP connector pipes aren’t painted at all.

Back from the paint shop and shiny white

The boatamalan painter hit the parts with a DA, then a coat of Awl Grip High Build primer and some 545 primer I had left over from the hull paint job, and then topcoated over that with the Awlgrip Matterhorn white that was left over from the non-skid. Since these are just exhaust bits, he hotcoated them all (ie no sanding between coats, just wait for the recoat window and hit it with the next product).

Shiny exhaust oulets

But I have to say that the Boatamalans have a disturbing habit of filling holes with fairing compound. When I made the outlets, I drilled the holes very precisely so the orientation would be right when I reinstalled them. I also prefer that all holes have a coat of paint on the inside, and that’s accomplished by drilling then painting. When I turned the pieces over to be painted, I gave explicit instructions for them not to fill the holes. I was adamant about this, especially after spending almost two days clean fairing compound out of the holes to reinstall the stainless steel rub rail.  Alas! They filled the damned holes anyway! 😦

There’s no way to drill out the fairing compound from the back on the upper half, since the exhaust pipe is in the way. So I spent about two hours locating the hole centers and very carefully redrilling. What’s a couple of hours, right? Except that I can only work on the boat on weekends, so every hour is precious…it gets frustrating sometimes.

Holes drilled again and a nice fit

Taping off for the boot stripe

Ready to go back to the paint shop

I’ll pick up the finished exhaust outlets this weekend, so if I find myself frustrated again by the helm windshield installation I’ll have something to distract me and give a sense of progress.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The Boatyard in Winter…2014

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Update on the Bow Seat Windows

Back in early November 2013, I was very excited to finally see my new bow seat windows arrive. While they looked great coming out of the crate, on closer examination I found problems with quality control on the welds and weld finishing that would almost certainly lead to premature coating failure. Sure, the coatings would probably last through the two-year warranty period. But since I’m paying far more for these three windows than I will for all of the other new tinted glass throughout the boat, I felt the quality should reflect the marketing claims of the manufacturer and the price.

After a bit of discussion with the manufacturer, Motion Windows agreed to take the windows back and remanufacture them to their usual high standard. That’s good because, in addition to the weld and paint work issues, I also found that the frames were not built to the dimensions I specified…two out of the three would not fit into the window holes!

Motion Windows’ auto CAD spec sheet for the starboard window

And for the center and port windows

1″ mark = zero

The pic above is the center window, and I’m measuring it’s height.  Note that I aligned the 1″ mark with the edge of the frame that fits into the window opening to avoid inaccuracy from the stainless piece at the end of the tape measure. The spec sheet indicates a height of 12-15/16″ for the center windshield, which was exactly the size of the 1/4″ plywood template I sent them. That template would go through the entire depth of the window opening without touching the sides…but just by a whisker. Everything should fit great as long as the windows aren’t made larger than the specification.

Since 1″ = 0, 14″ = 13″

As indicated in the pic, the window frame height is actually 13″, which is a full 1/16″ larger than specified. But it gets worse at the corners where the welds are…

Add 3/64″~1/16″ for the welds

Set the 1″ mark at the edge of the weld and…

It’s 13-1/16″ (because we started at 1″) on the far side of the opposite weld

A window that’s 13-1/16″ tall at the corners where the welds protrude cannot fit into a hole that’s 12-15/16″ in height. And if you look closely, that’s a heavy 13-1/16″…maybe even 13-3/32″. Either way, the windows are too big to fit in the holes, and I’m not grinding into my brand new Awlgrip paint job to make room!

Fortunately, Motion Windows did hold up on their end of the bargain. The windows are back in the crate and will be shipped back to the West Coast on Monday. I should get the new windows back in 30 days or so. While I’m not happy with the way things went, I have to commend Motion for standing behind their product and promising to improve their quality control.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Window Pains II

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Stainless Rub Rails

Tent Model IX is on life support; it won’t take another storm of any kind. So the top priority is to get the boat ready to convert the tent from a gargantuan spray booth to as small a winter tent as possible. For that to happen, the rub rails that I polished a few weeks ago have to be installed and we have to complete the prop shaft strut barrel installation.

The rub rails have to be installed because the tent will once again extend all the way to the ground, and the wooden tent uprights and 1-1/2″ PVC poles might move around during high winds. The stainless will protect the new Awlcraft 2000 paint from incidental contact from the tent structure.

First, locate and drill out all of the screw holes

Many of the screw holes had been filled when we were fairing the hull back in 2009, so the fairing compound had to be drilled out. I used an undersized drill to lessen the possibility of cutting into the threads. Because the epoxy fairing compound is softer than aluminum, the drill tended to track into the softer material.

Step 2: chase the threads with a tap

There’s one hole every 6 inches. The boat is 46 feet long (plus the curve of the bow). Each hole takes 30 seconds to locate and drill, then a minute to tap. If you do the math, you should conclude (as I did) that this was one tedious job that took a loooooong time to finish.

New 316 Stainless 6-32 screws secure the rub rail to the boat

In the pic above, I’m installing the second rub rail back from the bow piece on the port side. First, I suspend the rail from the overhead tent pipes, then install a screw at one end of the rail and work my way back. While the stainless is very rigid in the Y axis, it’s a freakin’ wet noodle in the X axis. And since they’re 12 feet long, that’s a lot of wet noodle to work with. It would have been faster with a helper, but everybody was busy. Even offers of beer didn’t get a response!

Tef-gel is essential to avoid dissimilar metal corrosion

The rub rail screw holes on these aluminum boats are notorious points of failure for the paint. Back in the day, they didn’t have Tef-gel–a magical goo that reportedly keeps dissimilar metal corrosion at bay. A good sealant on the outside of the rub rail and screw, like Sikaflex 291 LOT, only protects half of the screw. The other half that protrudes on the inside of the hull is bare metal. Because it’s in the relatively humid interior of the boat, the screws will collect condensation when the metal is cold. That moisture can wick into the threads from the backside and start the process of making aluminum oxide that pops the paint off of the aluminum. Tef-gel on the threads of each screw and, using the included mascara brush, inside each threaded hole should stop moisture from getting into the threads.

Add the time required to apply Tef-gel to each screw and screw hole in the “tedium factor” calculation you did earlier. 😉

Upper rub rail is installed

This is, unfortunately, an operation I’ll have to repeat. Aside from the fundamental need to get the winter tent built, the purpose of this installation is to drill out all of the holes and ensure the fit of the rails. I’ll have to remove them all and reinstall using Sikaflex for the final installation. I previously sanded the rub rails to a satin polish but did not do the final buff to make them really shine. Because the tent frames might rub up against the rails over the winter, it would have been risky to final polish them. With the holes cut and drilled, removing and reinstalling next year shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours.

The lower rub rail presented a different challenge

Beautifully smooth…flawless even…and totally useless for locating screws!

While the upper rub rails had a few open screw holes and telltale marks indicating where the filled holes were, there were no such marks for the lower rub rails. The paint job was perfectly smooth. Without any indicator of where the holes were, there weren’t any starting points for the rub rails. There are three stainless sections: the port and starboard parts, which go around the turn at the transom, and the center piece on the transom. The holes for each of the side pieces are in different positions, so they’re not interchangable without drilling lots of new holes. The orientation of the center piece is also determined by the orientation of the outer pieces. There were no apparent starting points, but then I noticed the clue that told the story.

The starboard corner is sharp at the turn to the transom

The port side corner is more round

The stainless pieces have corresponding differences in the corner radii

Problem solved! On to the tedium of drilling, tapping, and Tef-gelling!

Et Voilà

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Propeller Shafts (part II)

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Painting the Stripes

With winter rapidly approaching, we’re in a race with Mother Nature to get the paint work done. We painted Awlcraft 2000 on the cabin top, decks, and aft enclosure during the summer, and the hull got “the shiny” as autumn 2013 settled into the area.  The only exterior paint work left to do are the accent stripes on the hull and the final coats of Imron MS1 High Gloss Clear on the mahogany toe rail. Last weekend, we got the blue stripes done.

The pictures we took when we first got the Roamer back in late 2007 were not especially helpful as a guide to what the stripes should look like now because the boat had been completely repainted some time in the early 1980s. The lines on the upper stripe, in particular, went up and down over the length of the boat and didn’t widen at the bow the way they should. We also looked at other Roamer 46 pictures, but it’s difficult to know where the proper lines should be since all of the boats seem to be slightly different.

I asked the stripe guru from Weaver Boatworks to come over, but the perfectly straight lines they use at Weaver didn’t work. The Weaver boats have no portholes in the hulls that they have to follow, so they can make their lines perfectly straight along any orientation the owners want. We have to make our stripe wide enough to cover all  of the portholes along the hull sides and the engine vents, too. But none of the rectangular porthole openings are perfectly aligned, and the ER vents and the forward round portholes are a different height than the rectangular ones. When the striping guru made perfectly straight lines that just covered the aft stateroom windows and ER vents, which is what all of the pictures of Roamer 46s look like, the lower lines went through the middle of the round port holes at the front of the boat. And when he made them wide enough to cover the round ports forward and rectangular ones all along the hull sides, the stripes were ridiculously wide aft!

So much for using perfectly straight lines on an old aluminum Chris Craft production boat…

After ripping down the fine-line tape twice(!), the stripe guru focused on the boot stripe while I eyeballed the upper stripe and just got ‘er done.

Taping off the stripes

Once the stripes were taped off, we machine sanded the large areas using Mirka Abranet 320, taking care to avoid corners and the fine line tape. Then we went back and hand sanded all of the shiny spots right up to the tape line.

Taping the ER vents from the inside

Hand masking film goes on next to protect the new Alwcraft 2000 Matterhorn White

These boats originally had a “shadow box” paint layout for the stern, with the inset part of the transom and portholes the same color as the accent and boot stripe. Because this is an aluminum boat and there is no lazarette separating the transom from the aft stateroom, I felt a large area of dark painted exterior would add too much unwanted heat to the interior of the boat. So we’re only putting color on the transom at the boot stripe.

With the Matterhorn White protected, next we turned Tent Model IX (the best tent ever!) into a spray booth again.

Taped off, wiped down, tacked off, and ready to spray

This boat originally had dark green stripes, but we prefer blue. So we mixed up some Awlcraft 2000 Navy Blue, fired up the compressor and refrigerated air drier and suited up. The results were freakin’ outstanding, if I do say so myself.

Props to the Boatamalan* painter!

*Boatamalan: portmanteau indicating highly skilled boat workers of Central American origin. They’re actually from Honduras, but boat + [Guat]amalan has a nicer ring to it.

Talk about nice flow!

The fuzzy, spotty reflection is actually a mirror-like reflection of the translucent hand masking film covering the tent frames and very dirty exterior tent material.

No runs, even at the ER vent gills.

The blue line widens at the bow and covers both porthole openings

Pix don’t capture the shiny as well as the eye can, but this stuff is like a mirror!

Man, am I glad the exterior tent isn’t see-through. When I was walking around taking the pix, I was doin’ a happy dance all around the scaffolding! 🙂

Shiny!

I stopped dead with the happy dance though, when I turned toward the bow and saw the reflection in the pic below.

You can read the small print on the Sharkskin label in the reflection!

The picture doesn’t capture it entirely, but I hope you get the idea…seriously, the chief Boatamalan has absolutely mad skills when it comes to flowing out Awlgrip paint. And once again, he said the job is much cleaner than what they normally get on paint jobs at Weaver Boatworks, where the whole shop is full of flying dust and they can’t stop working for a day so the floating particles can settle out before spraying.

We’ll leave the plastic up for a week so we don’t have to re-tape when we spray the final coats of MS1 on the toe rail. Then that’s a wrap for the big paint work.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Propeller Shafts

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The Hull is Shiny!

Our Roamer hull is finally painted in Awlcraft 2000 Matterhorn White. 🙂

Man…I’m beat.

First, let’s quickly review what this 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 looked like when we found it in late 2007 languishing in Purgatory Row of a southern Maryland boatyard, where it had been sitting unloved since roughly 1985.

As found in 2007

By August 2008, she was sandblasted.

By March 2009 she was getting faired

By July 2009, she was fully barrier coated, faired, and primed to the rub rail, with three coats of bottom paint.

Then there was the Paperwork SNAFU in 2009, and I moved the boat to a different marina. After the paperwork SNAFU was resolved in 2012, we painted the cabin top, the aft enclosure and the decks over the spring and summer of 2013. Then, we longboarded the hull once more and did some touch-up fairing. After applying the final coat of Awlgrip 545 primer, we cleaned up the boat and tent in preparation for what came next…taping up the boat and spraying “the shiny” on the hull! Talk about fast forward!

The day started before dawn, rolling out Sharkskin plastic, 3M hand masking film and lots of 3m 233+ masking tape. It took until 3pm, but we finally got the boat and tent taped up.

The hull was fully cocooned

As a precautionary measure, we taped Sharkskin plastic over everything from the rub rail up that we’ve already painted. Then, after taping 14-foot wide plastic to the rub rail, we pulled it over a guy wire we strung 18 inches above the rub rail all the way around the boat. From there, we taped the plastic to the walls of the tent and let it drape down to the scaffolding. This creates a sort of hallway around the boat with a low ceiling, but not so low that the plastic interferes with spraying. With vents near the front of the boat and the exhaust fans at the back, the relatively small cross section of the hallway should maximize air flow and move overspray out of the space quickly. This is important, since overspray can make “the shiny” dull and we don’t want to have to sand and polish this boat.

Next, we taped 24-inch handmasking film around the bottom paint line and pulled it over to the scaffolding. Doing so creates a plastic film envelope all around the hull. This is super important at this phase of the paint job since, in addition to air flow concerns while spraying, there’s an awful lot of sanding residue under the boat and no practical way to clean it up with the tent in place.

At the bow, we left the plastic film envelope open so we could paint the shiny under the chine. There’s no way to reach it from the scaffolding otherwise.

The view up from the bow.

The final step for covering the boat was to tape down the diamond tread blue plastic (Cover Guard Fire Rated Temporary Protection). This stuff is awesome because even when it’s covered in tacky, fresh paint spray, it doesn’t pull up when you walk on it.

With the taping all done, we wiped the hull with Awlgrip pre-cleaner twice, then hit it with tack cloths twice. After that, we mixed the paint, suited up, fired up the fresh air system, replaced the filters and turned on the exhaust fans. Time to spray!

The results are quite nice, if I do say so myself. 🙂

Shiny!

Since the plastic walls of the “spray booth” are covered with overspray, the shine doesn’t show so well in these pix. But it looks good. No bugs. Only a few specks of dirt. No runs, and very nice flow. My chief Boatamalan painter says it turned out nicer than what they get when they spray multimillion dollar sportfishermen over at his day job at Weaver Boatworks. For all the effort we’ve put into this thing, that’s great to hear. 🙂

Like a mirror! A big, curved mirror!!

Three coats of “the shiny” Awlcraft 2000 should make for a durable paint job

We left the boatyard just as the sun was setting….a very long but satisfying day. We’ll leave the tent in “hull spray booth” mode until next weekend, when we’ll tape it off for the blue accent stripes in the evening after our day jobs. Can’t wait to pull the tape! 🙂

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

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!