1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Helm Station Mahogany IV

You know how it goes with projects: the prep takes 90% of the total time and it’s kind of ugly along the way, then in a blink it’s done and everything’s pretty? The aft deck solid mahogany went kinda like that.

First, I sanded all of the mahogany pieces with Mirka Abranet 240

I hit all of the flat surfaces first with just the stock sanding pad. With Abranet, the vacuum pulls almost all of the dust through. It’s a lot better than any paper-backed sandpaper I’ve ever used.

Once the flat areas are done, I put a foam spacer pad on and hit the radiused edges. Then move on to the next piece and repeat.

Ready for Spar varnish

First coat seals the wood

Second coat

3rd coat and done

Ready to install.

First, saturate the back-sides of each panel with US Composites epoxy

At the same time, we wetted out the hardtop structural wood that these pieces will attach to.

Next, trowel on some wood flour and cabosil-thicken epoxy

Glued & screwed in place

Repeat the process for the center and starboard panels

Next up come the long side panels

Gotta keep the epoxy off of the Awlgrip paint!

Saturate the wooden attachment points

That 50-year old plywood I reused here sure soaks up the epoxy.

More wood flour and cabosil-thickened epoxy

Trowel on the glue and get ready to screw

Ready to install the panel

That’s quite nice

Port side got installed next

Next, we installed bungs in the screw holes

The bungs will get sanded later and get a few spot coats of varnish. Then I’ll sand all of the wood back here and apply the final coat. But that’ll happen after the boat’s splashed.

Last step: install the window finish pieces

It would have looked cleaner to just make these side pieces out of a single mahogany stick. But the little finish pieces can be removed without destroying anything, and that will allow me to take out the windows if I have to. I find that the window tracks I’m using get packed with dirt, and that makes the windows slide less smoothly. Being able to remove the glass and give the tracks a thorough cleaning is a periodical maintenance item. So it’s worth having the little finish/fascia panels removable.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Helm Station Radio Box II

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Helm Station Mahogany III

With the helm bulkhead refreshed with a new sheet of mahogany, I got busy on the cabinet on the starboard side of the helm.

1/2″ ribbon-stripe mahogany ply is rough cut for the helm side cabinet faces

Gotta tighten up that gap at the top of the port-side helm cabinet panel a bit

I broke the panels down with 90° cuts a month or so ago when I was racing against rain from a hurricane to get the plywood inside the tent. But the decks aren’t 90° to the bulkhead. They’re angled, so any water that comes in will flow aft and off the boat.

Gotta love the EurekaZone track saw for making angled plywood cuts

That’s better

Before I glued the veneer panel on the helm bulkhead, I was fitting the side cabinet panels

That’s better

That’s better…time for varnish

Second coat

That one-part urethane Spar Varnish is driving me nuts. It gums up the Mirka Abranet 240 grit almost immediately.

MasterMind plunge saw is a great tool for cutting cabinet door openings

Finish the corner cuts with the Makita jigsaw

The jigsaw blades have a bigger kerf than the little plunge saw.

That’s looking pretty good

Time to make a cabinet box frame

That nasty looking piece of cracked, half-painted 1″ thick mahogany must have come from the OEM forward head enclosure. I saved it because I knew it’d come in handy one day.

Today’s that day.

Chopping up 1/4″ ribbon-stripe mahogany plywood into cabinet box parts

No screws this time

I’m framing out the cabinet box with mahogany solid stock wetted out with US Composites epoxy followed by epoxy thickened with wood flour and cabosil

Next day, it’s all coming together

Next, I’ll varnish the cabinet box panel faces, epoxy the backing cleats to each panel, fit and finish the back panels, then this cabinet’s ready to install.

“Progress”

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Helm Station Mahogany IV

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Fiberglassing the “Throne Room”

It’s been so hot in the tent that progress on the Roamer has slowed to a crawl. I’ve been tempted more than once to just cut the plastic off, but it’s way too soon. I’d just be making more problems for myself. So one workaround is to start very early in the morning, have lots of fans moving humid air around, and drink water…lots of water. But then we got a brief break from the heat wave. With the obligatory whining out of the way, I got the V-berth head walls and floor fiberglassed and hot coated with fairing compound. Just in time for the heat wave to return this week.

yay

Looks like a future sticky mess to me!

First, we cut all the fiberglass pieces to fit the complex shape of the V-berth head, then the fun began. But once the epoxy gets mixed, there’s no time to take pictures. Even when it’s only 85°F outside, inside the tent it’s hotter and the epoxy starts to kick pretty fast. So one guy is rolling epoxy on the walls while another is brushing into the corners. Another guy is out in the salon mixing up the next batch of epoxy. Once a wall is wetted out, in comes the 1708 biaxial fiberglass and more epoxy.  Two guys in that head with the walls wetted out with epoxy…not something I ever want to do again. Tyvek suits were a requirement, which just makes the heat and humidity worse. Even with the big fume extractor running, it was pretty miserable. But we got ‘er done.

Fiberglassed and faired

We used the same hot coat process for the fairing compound as we did for the bullet-proof cabin top. The fairing compound is a homemade mix of epoxy — the same West System we used for the fiberglass layer — thickened with fumed silica and glass bubbles in a 30/70 ratio. When we did the cabin top, we had to wait up to an hour for the fiberglass epoxy to set up enough so we could apply the fairing compound. If you try to apply the fairing compound before the epoxy starts to kick, it just pulls the fiberglass out of position. But this time, it was so hot that the epoxy was blasting past the tacky phase really quickly. We had to scramble to get the fairing compound on before the cure advanced too far.

What a sticky mess

It’s sticky and messy, but hot coating is the way to go, since it saves having to grind the fiberglass to apply fairing compound. Anybody who’s ever taken a grinder or sander to fiberglass knows how miserable that is. Plus, grinding breaks the fibers, which weakens the FRP matrix. Another benefit of hot coating is that you get an epoxy-epoxy chemical bond between the fairing compound, the FRP matrix, and the wetted out substrate, which is superior to the mechanical bond you get applying fairing compound over a sanded or ground surface.

Almost done

After the walls were all coated with a light layer of fairing compound, we applied a piece of fiberglass to the throne dias and floor around it, faired that, then laid on the last piece for the entryway, which is also the shower floor, and faired that. Lotta work, but we got ‘er done.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Fairing the “Throne Room”

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Aft Head Ceiling Panels (more fillets!)

With the aft stateroom head walls fiberglassed and faired, the ceiling panels cut, fiberglassed, and faired, and the overhead wiring done, the next step is to install the ceiling panels, prime, and prep for paint. What we’re ultimately going for here is a nearly waterproof unit bathroom, in which the ceilings and walls are fiberglassed together, like an oversized shower enclosure.

1/4″ marine plywood ceiling panel that’s been fiberglassed and faired

It’s a lot easier to do flat fairing work on a table than it is overhead, but the epoxy, fiberglass, and fairing compound make these panels heavy and awkward to move around.

Panel 1 in place

I didn’t have time to take pictures with sticky epoxy in play, but prior to installing the panel I wetted out the top side of the panel with epoxy, then applied epoxy thickened with wood flour and cabosil to each overhead frame. With a little help from a friend, I marked off the overhead frames and countersunk the screw holes before fastening the panel in place with stainless screws.

Panel 2 glued and screwed in place

Corners and panel edges are glued and screwed all around

The joint between the panels will get a strip of fiberglass

Thickened epoxy topped with wetted out fiberglass mat

Panel edges get a strip of FRP to the longitudinal mahogany beam, too

Home-made epoxy fairing compound is hot-coated over FRP

It’s a lot easier to hot-coat tacky fiberglass with homemade fairing compound made of the same epoxy + a 70/30 mix of 3M microballoons and cabosil than it is to sand cured fiberglass and apply fairing compound. Hot-coating saves a really miserable step in the process.

After sanding the fairing compound, it’s fillet time!

I do love my fillets. Seriously. Can’t get enough of ’em. Awlfair is a great product for fillet work, and it sands pretty easily, too.

Once the Awlfair sets up, we’ll hit it with Awlquik, sand, then Awlgrip 545 primer, and then final sand before painting with Eggshell Awlgrip.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Prepping the Aft Head for Paint.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Wiring the Aft Head Lights

With the aft head moldings and corner/door pocket piece done, next I have to run the wires for the overhead lights and light switch. I have to wire it now because once I install the ceiling panels and do the fiberglass and fairing work, access to the overhead frames in this head will be rather challenging.

Overhead light wiring–original supply is fine

Since our Roamer 46 had been on dry land for about 25 years prior to us finding it on Purgatory Row of a southern Maryland boatyard, the original wiring is largely in good, serviceable condition. I’ve already removed all of the wiring that showed any sign of corrosion, so for the aft head overhead lights I just needed to add a new leg to go between the 12vdc LEDs we’ll be using and the light switch.

Slot the edge, drill the hole, then route for the switch

Chris Craft had a variety of ways of installing the wiring to switches. In a situation like this, with both sides of a panel being in living space, they usually just routed a groove in the face of the panel, straight from the ceiling to the switch. They installed the wire in the groove and covered it with a mahogany or teak trim piece. It’s not a bad approach, but I wanted a cleaner look. So I’ll run the wire up to the ceiling inside the slot that I cut in the panel edge.

Stuff the wire edgewise into the slot

Epoxy thickened with wood flour and cabosil along all bonding surfaces

More thickened epoxy on the corner piece

Clamp together, clean up, and let it cure overnight

Leave no epoxy outside of the joint

The 1″ x 1″ mahogany cleat I’m using for clamping is set back just far enough from the joint to allow me to wipe the area with a rag soaked in alcohol. Since the wood is already coated with ICA base coat clear, the wet epoxy wipes right off.

Et voila!

The aft head switch wiring is done and the panel corner piece/door pocket is installed!

In other news, you know your beater truck is suffering from deferred maintenance blues when you’re driving down the road on the way to the boatyard and the muffler comes off!

Salt in winter vs cheap steel muffler

Salt wins!

Funky rusted out lettering

Now the muffler’s nicer than the truck!

It turned out that the exhaust pipe from the catalytic converter to where the muffler used to be was rotten, too. So I fired up my Millermatic 35 and welded the new parts in. $35 and an afternoon later, we were back in business.

Truck’s still ugly though and getting worse by the year.

The old Ford only needs to hang on through next summer. Once the boat splashes, I won’t need it anymore.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Aft Head Ceiling Panels (more fillets!)

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The Helm Station Windshield Frame

When I last wrote about that bloody windshield frame, things were not going well. While it looked great outside, the frame fit very poorly to the boat. If this was a typical Chesapeake crabber’s boat, a 3/8″ gap between the windshield frame and the hard top might not be a problem–just fill ‘er in with urethane sealant. But since this isn’t a work boat, I wanted (and paid for) a frame that fits. When the fabricator declared he’d do no more work on the frame, I had to call in my Boatamalan* painter to fix the southern Maryland fabricator’s handiwork.

* Boatamalan = joking portmanteau referring to the Central American origin of the fairing crew and painter (boat + Guatamalan). In fact, the Boatamalans are mostly from Honduras, but Boatduran doesn’t roll off the tongue like Boatamalan does. 🙂

Here’s what we’re dealing with:

3/16″ irregular gap at the port side bottom

Starboard upper corner was waaaay off

One of three high spots contacting the hard top

Zero contact at the port-side inner upright

Brand new Awlgrip got dinged up

The paint getting scratched really added insult to injury, since tape is cheap and I put a whole case of it out for the fabricator to use when the tape needed replacing. Instead of spending five minutes replacing tape, he let it get worn out and then got sloppy installing the frame (over and over again because it didn’t fit right because he welded it together off the boat). Sheesh

More dinged up paint on the port side

Swiss Cheese from all the holes the fabricator drilled…and note the scratched paint

More Swiss cheese…too many holes!

Also in the pic above, note the chip in the brand new Awlgrip paint that would be visible above the windshield frame. The fabricator’s proposed solution: “Cover it with urethane sealant.”

Sheesh…whatever happened to “American quality?”

We’ll see if Boatamalan skills and an amateur American boat refitter can put some quality back into the job. 😉

The repair process begins with blue mold release tape and a grinder to knock down high spots

Same on the starboard side

Blue mold release tape on the frame

Blue mold release tape covering the top and bottom contact areas of the frame

Heavyweight fiberglass will fill the gaps

Wetting out the fiberglass fabric

Epoxy fairing compound tops the frame to fill in any imperfections, followed by wetted out ‘glass

The fairing compound is the same homemade stuff we used when we faired the cabintop. It’s epoxy thickened with a 70/30 mix of 3M glass bubbles and cabosil.

Top the first layer with more fairing compound and another layer of ‘glass

Areas with big gaps get a 3rd layer

Top the layers of fiberglass with another layer of fairing compound

Fairing compound on the lower frame landing will fill the gaps there

Ready to slide up in place and fasten

 

Nice fit at the top starboard corner

Good fit along the bottom

Looking good at the uprights

On the inside, no more high spots

Huge gaps? What huge gaps?

Good contact all the way across the top

100% contact all the way across the top and bottom should eliminate pressure points that are prone to cracking

With the sticky epoxy dripping everywhere, we slowly backed away from the helm station and let everything cure. Time will tell if the plan works… 😉

Next up on our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The Helm Station Windshield III

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Fillets On The Hard Top

Breaking open the Awlgrip paint job was tough, but it was the best way to resolve the problem caused by thieves stealing my drip rails (and a lot of other stuff) back in May 2014. With the paint ground back on the joint between the top and bottom halves of the hard top, and new fiberglass and fairing compound laid over the joint, next we sanded the fairing compound and used fillets to smooth the edge.

First, sand down the fairing compound

The great thing about hot-coating home made epoxy fairing compound over fresh fiberglass is that you don’t have to get itchy twice. Sanding the fairing compound is much easier than grinding on fresh fiberglass (thereby weakening it) and applying fairing compound over that.

Gotta love fillets

Awlfair is a great product for fillet work. And on this project, we’ve done lots of fillets.

Later that day, after the Awlfair kicked, we sanded the fillets smooth

Next day, we taped off the boat and sprayed Awlquik

Bad lighting, good fillet

Without a drip rail, rain will tend to drip from all over the hard top, but I’m OK with that. One thing I’ve noticed is that boats with drip rails tend to get very nasty drip lines at the spot where all the rain drips off. This may not be a problem with boats outside of urban areas, but mine will definitely be an urban boat, and all of the dust that settles on the boat and gets washed off by rain will be evenly distributed now that I don’t have a drip rail.

That’s my theory, and I’m stickin’ with it. Gotta see a bright side in this whole theft thing somehow… 🙂

Next up on our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The Helm Station Windshield Frame

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Cummins Engine Install — Spacers II

In my last article, I wrote about the second step in the process of  installing the Cummins engines into my Roamer. I came up with one plan for engine beds that didn’t work out at all, then cut up one of the beds to make spacers that should work just fine. But then I realized that the top of the stringer on one side isn’t square to the stringer upright, which complicates things just a bit. Just when I thought I’d worked around that problem, another one jumped out to bite me.

Up front, the vibration isolators are totally bottomed out

I even had to remove the locknut (lower left corner of the picture above) to lower the front of the engine far enough.

At the back, 1-1/2″ thick spacers put the engine at the right height

Perfect fit…zero gap at the couplers

But then, I checked the clearance under and around the engine…

There’s less than 1/8″ between the oil pan and one of the frames

There’s also zero clearance between the gear cooler and the top of the stringer. I need to move the engine out of the way and make some space.

Gotta love that gantry!

The gantry is absolutely the best tool I’ve ever made. Moving these one-ton engines around by a couple thousandths or a couple of feet is a one-man job.

Jigsaw makes quick work of the frame

That little wedge I cut out of the aluminum frame to make room for the oil pan will come in very handy in my next article.

Sharpie mark on the stringer marks the line for the fuel cooler

I need to cut the top of the stringer along the line I marked with a Sharpie so the fuel cooler bracket at the top of the pic above will fit between the stringers.  These coolers are notorious for causing installation headaches, and I’m experiencing that personally on my boat. Either way, it’s nothing that a gantry and jigsaw can’t fix.

Just like the front, the inner stringer isn’t square at the back

I’ll square that up the spacer when I finally install it in the next step.

The spacer is looking good…but..oh jeez.

I was so focused on the gear-to-prop shaft coupler gap, and centering the engine between the stringers, and trying to figure out what to do with the front motor mounts that are bottomed out, and the inner stringer that isn’t square to the upright frame that I totally missed the HUGE problem in the pic above.

The prop shaft coupler and gear coupler are perfectly mated, and the propeller is the exact distance it should be from the aft-most strut. But the 1/2″ bolt that will secure the rear vibration isolator to the stringer lands in the middle of the transverse frame behind the gear. That frame is welded to the engine-side of the upright stringer and the piece of aluminum angle in the pic above that forms the top of the stringer. There’s no good way to drill a hole through the stringer that won’t put the bolt and nut in the middle of that upright frame or the weld that holds everything together.

A pic from my last article shows the offending frame–how did I miss THAT???

I can’t move the engine back so the bolts clear the frame, since that would require pushing the prop shaft further out of the boat, which would put the propeller hub 2″ past the aft-most  cutlass bearing. I can’t pull the prop shaft further into the boat, because that would put the prop too close to the aft-most strut. The prop shaft can be shortened, but it’s already machined and installed. I could also have a new set of motor mounts made (which is probably what I should have done from the beginning). All of which reminds me of something I wrote about before: the butterfly effect, and how little tiny things that happened a long time ago can cause ripples in time that wind up kicking me in the balls years down the road.

I was originally going to order the prop shafts after the mechanic installed the engines, so I’d know exactly how long they needed to be. I fired the mechanic after he didn’t get the engines installed for several months back in 2012, but I’d already ordered the prop shafts based on his measurements. If only we had done things per the original plan…

While mulling over what to do about this new problem, I kept working on the spacers.

Epoxy + cabosil + atomized aluminum powder glues spacers together

Shopsmith 12″ sanding disk smooths the bonded aluminum

Nice radii on all sharp spacer corners

Good lookin’ spacer, ready for install

As I was finishing up sanding the spacers, an idea from years before came back to me. I remembered that in my original plan I was going to use DriveSavers to isolate my prop shafts from the gear. DriveSavers are basically industrial strength rubber donuts that isolate prop vibration, provide drivetrain protection in the event of a prop strike, and they break electrical continuity between the hull (via the engine & gear) and the prop shaft and prop, which is even more important on metal boats than on other hull materials. Far more important, though, was that DriveSavers generally require the engine to be moved forward or the prop shaft to be cut by about 1″ to make space for the rubber donut. In my case, they’ll permit me to move the engines forward far enough for those aft-most rear vibration isolator bolts to clear the upright frame, plus provide all of the benefits that originally convinced me they were something I needed on my boat.

We’re back in business…I think.

Next up on our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Cummins Engine Install –DriveSavers & Spacers

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Cutting and Installing Overhead Mahogany Plywood

Aft stateroom overhead needs panels installed before foam

Once the foam insulation gets sprayed between the frames, it will be very difficult to securely attach mahogany plywood panels overhead. The panels over every door and cabinet would have to be free-floating below the insulation, which wouldn’t make for a very solid structure. Alternatively, I’d have to slice and scrape away the urethane foam, and that sounds tedious.

Time to break out the luan ply strips and glue gun

The luan strips capture the complex angles and distances of the overhead framing

Transfer the luan shape to African mahogany plywood

The mahogany plywood pieces I’m using are the scraps that were left over from the aft stateroom walls.

First cut…not a bad fit

I’ve noticed that the luan tends to have a bit of spring in it. The transferred shape that I cut in the plywood is never a precise fit the first time around. It only takes a fraction of an inch here and there to make the fit too tight.

Better…but now quite right

That’s more like it

There’s a good fit all along the overhead plywood and frames, as well as along the edge where the overhead piece meets the walls and corners.

Repeat for the next segment on the port side

While I’m at it, I might as well install the last aft stateroom bulkhead

The pic above shows the stairs coming down from the helm station into the salon, behind which there is a large open area that permitted big things–like the fuel tank, the washer, dryer, and jet bath, to be moved into the aft stateroom. I removed the bulkhead there during the early demolition phase, since the plywood there was rotted out from the former teak decks. Since I no longer need that wide opening, it’s time to put the new bulkhead in.

Scarfed in frame replaces rotten mahogany

Pretty close fit for the first cut

After trimming off 1/32″ along the bottom, the bulkhead slid right into position

Like all of the other aft stateroom walls, I had this panel finished with ICA basecoat clear before installation. We’ll top coat it when we do the entire interior.

Overhead panels back from the paint shop, then prepped for gluing and screwing

Varnishing a piece of molding for a butt joint

The varnish protects the wood from the epoxy that’s used for the joint. Instead of staining the wood, any epoxy that squeezes out of the joint just wipes off with alcohol.

Molding hides the joint for the panel over the aft stateroom head door opening

That’s a wrap for the overhead panels in the aft stateroom

Ventilator opening through the toe rail had a piece of rotten mahogany that I removed

Wetting out the new mahogany piece to encapsulate it in epoxy

My ShopSmith bandsaw came in very handing making this piece for the ventilation opening. It’s a big chunk of mahogany, and none of my other saws could have made the cuts.

Wood flour and cabosil-thickened epoxy holds the new piece in place

But before clamping the new mahogany in place, I coated the entire opening (chute? chase?) with epoxy until it wouldn’t take any more. Then I applied wood flour-thickened epoxy where there were sharp edges at the transitions from the mahogany toe rail to the aluminum deck, and then to the mahogany underneath. Once the whole opening was smooth with thickened epoxy, I coated it once more to give an even smooth finish. Any water that passes the ventilator scoops will encounter a plastic tube, with no exposed wood to rot out.

And with that, the aft stateroom is ready for spray foam insulation.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Prepping the V-berth for Foam Insulation

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Aft Stateroom Head Walls

I installed the aft stateroom bulkhead and main walls back in March and April, which was one of many big things that must happen if we’re going to splash the Roamer in the fall of 2015. The windshield saga may put a hitch in that plan, but I’m going full steam ahead on other things while I work on a resolution for the windshield problems.

After getting the aft stateroom walls installed, my Boatamalan painter asked why I don’t make the aft head into a giant shower: basically, fiberglass and fair the walls and ceiling, then bond the ceiling to the overhead frames and fillet the corners. Then, prime and paint with Awlgrip. You end up with a monolithic room with no cracks or seams for water vapor to hide in and support mold. They do this on the showers in the multimillion dollar sportfishermen that the Boatamalan makes at Weaver Boatworks (his day job), though their showers are much smaller than my aft head. I figure what’s good enough for a multimillion dollar Weaver boat ought to be OK for a Chris Craft Roamer refit.

Expensive little pile of materials

1810 biaxial fiberglass, a roll of Floor Guard (the blue corrugated plastic), four rolls of masking film, a bucket of wood flour, a gallon or two of epoxy resin, hardner, and some fancy-schmancy filler…$1800. A small price to pay for a bathroom that’ll make the missus happy. By the time we add in the Awlquik, 545 primer, and Awlgrip top coat (in an off-white eggshell color), reducer, and catalyst, materials for the aft head total $2500.

This AlexSeal product is the only fairing compound to use in showers

The Boatamalan says other fillers–even Awlfair–can end up having problems years down the road in a shower application. The Alexseal product, while eye-poppingly expensive, is worth every penny since we’ll never have to do it again.

Roamer bathroom w/jet bath > Weaver multimillion dollar boat w/shower 🙂

The challenge is, we have to fiberglass, fair, prime, and paint in a small boat bathroom (relative to your average house bathroom) while the jet bathtub is in the space. Taping off the tub with Floor Guard and setting it up on end out of the way, the Boatamalan hit the bulkhead and walls with the sander. In retrospect, if we’d thought of this approach earlier, we should not have beautifully finished the interior walls of the head with ICA base coat clear. It all got turned to some very expensive dust in preparation for fiberglassing the walls.

Sanded with 36 grit and ready for epoxy and 1810 biaxial fabric

First layer of 1810 fabric applied at the top

Second band of 1810 applied down to the floor

Looks like a good place for fillets

I’m a big fan of fillets.

Skim coat of fairing compound

Once the epoxy was tacky, we hot-coated it with home-made fairing compound using the same epoxy and a 70/30 mix of microballoons and cabosil to a stiff, whipped cream consistency. We did this when fairing the exterior as well, since it puts a layer of fairing compound between the sand paper and the glass fibers in the FRP matrix when the fairing process begins. The strength of FRP is in the fibers, so not breaking them makes for a stronger finished product.

Bulkhead wall coated in fiberglass, epoxy, and fairing compound

That’s a wrap for Step One in the aft stateroom bathroom. I’ve described before the complex order of operations for this refit, where seemingly unrelated and even trivial stuff has to get done before a bigger thing can get done. The order of operations as of right this second is:

Sand walls
Apply Alexseal fairing compound (wait to cure)
Make ceiling panels (1/4″ marine ply, FRP & fair inside surface)
Insulate ceiling between frames (spray foam)
Sand Alexseal fairing compound smooth on walls
Install wiring for overhead lights
Epoxy back-side of ceiling panels and install (glue and screw to overhead frames, fiberglass joints, and fair)
Sand joints and make fillets
Sand & apply Awlquik
Sand Awlquik and apply 545 primer
Final sand 545 and spray Awlgrip topcoat in eggshell white

Since I’ll be spraying insulation to get the bathroom ready, I might as well do the rest of the boat, too. I’d like to have all of this done by July 1, when I plan to start on mechanical and get the engines finally installed. Busy, busy, busy…I need to quit my day  job! 🙂

Next up on our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Aft Stateroom Head Walls II