1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Galley Bulkhead

With all of the aft stateroom walls installed, I need to get the galley bulkhead installed if I’m going to splash the boat in the fall of 2015. The panels have been cut and ready to install since 2013, but I’ve been too busy doing other things, like the exterior paint.

Bulkhead panel cut and fitted (but not installed) since 2013

Pull the heavy bulkhead out to prep for final installation

That 3/4″ okume marine ply is heavy stuff. Not as heavy as some, but it’s a handful.

Glue and screw 1″x1″ mahogany cleats around each compartment opening

I redesigned the bow seat and made a vast improvement over Chris Craft’s original design. Whereas the original design was inaccessible empty space that had no supports across its 10′ span, my design is taller (for more comfortable sitting), it’s crowned (so water naturally runs off), and the five panels that create four compartments under it also support the seat. The center compartments under the bow seat are accessible from (soon to be installed) hatches on the exterior, and the outside compartments will most likely be accessible from the interior.

Cleats in, surfaces coated…ready for panel install

All interior surfaces of the compartments are heavily coated with epoxy, and the bottom panels also have a layer of fiberglass that extends up the sides a couple of inches. It would be prettier if I fully finished the inside of the compartments, but these are line storage compartments that won’t stay clean no matter what I do.

After wetting out all of the panel edges with epoxy several times, I mixed some wood flour and cabosil with the epoxy and applied that bonding agent over the wet edge. Finally, I mixed up some Devoe 236 primer and coated the exposed aluminum. The catalyst is a few years old and it changes to a red color over time, which is why the primer that should be white is pink.

Wet out the panel and apply epoxy thickened with wood flour to the bond areas

First galley bulkhead panel glued and screwed in place

Second galley bulkhead panel glued and screwed

I used my Kreg R3 Jr. pocket hole jig, in addition to epoxy and the wood flour and cabosil concoction, to glue and screw the joint between the two panels. The joint in the first panel was done using conventional joinery — route out grooves, glue in a spline, then use clamps to pull the panels together — but epoxy and the wood flour cabosil blend is such a strong bond that you don’t need to go through all of that work. Just make sure the panel edges are true, and wet them out with epoxy until they won’t drink any more. Apply the wood flour and cabosil-thickened epoxy, and the pocket screws pull the panels tightly together. Just make sure your bit driver clutch is set fairly low. On my Makita, setting the clutch to 4 (out of 16) pulls the panels together just fine without overdriving the screw.

After bolting the bottom edge of the panels to the aluminum framing that supports the floor of the galley, the bulkhead is rock-solid. Booyah.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Bow Seat Hatches

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing The Last Aft Stateroom Walls

The aft stateroom wall installation was going pretty smoothly. Gluing and screwing pre-finished panels to the corner pieces, floor, and overhead frames is working out well. Just two more wall sections to go, and the aft stateroom major wall installation is nearly done.

The new walls going in today, per The Plan

Good test fit for the toilet cubby wall

Dry fitted with clamps

Nice, tight joint

You can see some sanding marks printing through the finish, but keep in mind that ICA is a base-coat/top coat system. The sanding marks and surface imperfections in the base coat will vanish when it’s sanded and top coated.

Gluing the joint

I wetted out the joint with straight epoxy, then coated it with epoxy thickened with wood flour and cabosil.

Same treatment for the solid mahogany corner piece

Slide the panel home, gluing and screwing to overhead 1″x1″ cleats

Got another wall in! The toilet cubby lives!

The aft stateroom is really coming together…maybe a bit too fast

The pic above shows a wee bit of a problem that I’d foreseen and considered and had a plan to avoid…that I completely overlooked until it was almost too late. More on that later…

The next corner piece goes in

I had to notch the top just a wee bit to clear the backing block overhead

Nice fit…ready for the panel…but what was I thinking?

The back story here is that I was selling a piece of equipment on this day and the buyer was coming to pick it up at my house at 6pm. It’s an hour commute from my house to the boatyard. The walls were going in pretty quickly and I’ve got the process nailed, so I decided to get ‘er done and install the last wall before going home. It would be close, but I could do it. Looking at these pix now, I can’t believe I was so focused on gettin’ ‘er done that I didn’t see the problem I was creating.

Cut out the notch for the overhead butt block

Super awesome Kreg R3 Jr pocket hole screw jig makes fast work of pre-drilling for the floor joint

Nice alignment with the Concept Plan I traced on the floor

Bracing the panel to avoid creep

Pocket screw joinery is popular, in part, because the screws draw the pieces together very tightly. The screws go in at a very shallow angle — I believe it’s 10 degrees — so most of the clamping force is applied in line with the screw. But with glued and screwed applications, the glue acts as a lubricant and that 10 degree skew can cause the panel to creep up to 3/32″. To stop panel creep, I used scraps of wood and a wedge to keep the panel right over the lines I have laid out on the floor while I drive the pocket screws home.

Boom! Done! Time to clean up and get outta here!

Single flute cardboard protects the pre-finished wood

Dang, that’s pretty if I do say so myself

I know a lot of people like straight grained wood, but I really like the character that strategically placed knots add. This one’s at shoulder height…nice eye candy.

Coming together just like the Concept Plans (except for that one teensy-weensy thing)

Good cleat fit overhead…time to get home!

It was at about this time, while I was leaning over the new clothes dryer carton trying to get a shot of the inside of the new aft head wall that I realized I’d left the new clothes dryer carton inside the aft head when I installed the last of the walls. The door opening to the head is ~21 inches…about a foot too narrow to get the dryer out.

OMG

Fortunately, this was on a cold day and even though time had passed while I cleaned up and taped cardboard to the panels to protect the walls, the epoxy joint had not yet taken a hard set. So, I pulled out my cordless drill and very quickly removed all of the screws. There was a bit of a challenge removing the panel, since the wood flour and cabosil-thickened epoxy was in the process of setting, but in the end it all came apart just fine. While the wall was off, I pulled the dryer out of the bathroom and swapped it for the jet bathtub, which was sitting in its carton on the aft fuel tank. Then I put it all back together again, ending up with just a hint of a scuff on the tough ICA base coat clear. On the principle of “that’ll sand out,” I packed up, set the alarm, and was 20 minutes late getting home, but the buyer waited and the equipment went down the road as planned.

Sheesh…it’s never easy.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Insulation follow-up

 

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: 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: Exhaust III, Decommissioning the OE System

Today I’m documenting the final step of the major exhaust system work: yanking out the old system. While it might seem like I’m jumping around unfocused, messing with the exhaust before the hull is painted, the simple fact is that I don’t want to cut, grind, drill or use epoxy resin around anything that’s already painted with “the shiny.” The exhaust system had to be done before we put the last coat of Awlgrip 545 primer on the hull. If the mechanic I fired in July 2013 had installed the engines as promised back in September 2012, I wouldn’t be dealing with this now.

The OE exhaust system consisted of two 15-foot sections of 5-inch Schedule 40 pipes welded in from the transom to the engine room bulkhead. Inside the ER, there were two large steel “suitcase” mufflers, all of which had pretty much rotted out after 15 years of service. When we got the boat in 2007, she’d been on the hard since the mid-’80s. She’d only been running on the water for a decade and a half before ending up on purgatory row. So, rather than just go with the exhaust system that Chris Craft used, which obviously had its shortcomings, I wanted to do something better, longer lasting, and quieter. The factors that led me to go with side exhaust and waterlift  mufflers were:

Noise reduction–I’ve always had Detroit-powered boats and the sound of the exhaust was something I used to like…but not for long days at the helm. Even my other boat–a 1968 427 Ford-powered Commander 42–sounds wonderful…for about 15 minutes. After that it’s pretty much just noise. Granted, the Cummins 6CTAs in the Roamer will be a lot quieter than Detroits, but they’re hardly quiet. The waterlift mufflers are going to make for a quiet ride. In solving one problem though, another pops up.

Backpressure–I’d have to run 15 feet of 8″ pipe out the back on each side to get the backpressure where Cummins wants it. By going out the side and using an auxiliary raw water outlet so it doesn’t all have to go through the muffler, I can stick with a 6″ system and keep the backpressure down.

Space– the OE 5″ pipes took up roughly 12″ of width from each side of the aft stateroom. 8″ pipes would have pushed the wasted width to about 30 inches, and the pipes are 18 inches above the aft stateroom floors. When you add in air space around the pipes, you lose a huge amount of storage volume by running the exhaust out the transom. And finally,

Bang for the buck–the price delta between 6″ exhaust parts and 8″ is significant.

While taking out the old exhaust system, I found some more reasons why long aluminum pipes out the transom weren’t such a great idea.

Transom exhaust hole

In the pic above, you can see the “pipe within a pipe” consisting of the original 5″ exhaust pipe with the 3.5″ replacement I installed inside it for the Lehman 120 engines I originally planned to use for the boat. Let me know if anybody’s interested in some nearly new 3.5″ 6061 aluminum pipe…or some Lehman 120s with Twin Disc MG-502 gears.

Aluminum patch cutting

One very nice thing about aluminum is that you can use common woodworking tools to cut it. I do find, though, that metal cutting jigsaw blades last longer than ones intended for wood.

Grind, tack and weld

My Miller Trailblazer 280 and Spoolmatic 30A worked real well for welding the patches in.

Port patch done

Starboard patch done

Old pipes out the window

Next!

I used a carbide blade on my beater Skilsaw to make the initial cuts to get the pipe down to a manageable size, since carbide cuts through aluminum like a hot knife through butter. Then I followed up with my Harbor Freight sawsall to finish the cuts. The HF saw is noisy, but what do you expect for $20? With good Freud blades it does a good enough job and is still going strong after 7 years.

Incidentally, the pic above shows the half of the pipe that’s still connected to the boat at the engine room bulkhead. It’s also connected to the hull frame at the cut point. Since that welded brace midway along the pipe is behind extensive cabinetry with the original interior and the OE fuel tank, it’s got to be a really big job gaining access if you ever have to…say…replace a rotten pipe. You can’t just cut the two ends and pull the pipe out the transom.

OE exhaust is out

Extensive pitting in the OE exhaust pipe

The shot above shows the interior of the exhaust pipe that was welded to the ER bulkhead. The pipe is rotated so what was the bottom is on the right side in the pic. You can see the extensive pitting in the metal, especially where raw water would have been flowing when the engines were running. My theory is that the aluminum was attacked by copper ions from the exhaust risers on the Super Seamaster twin turbo engines that I pulled out of the boat back in 2008. Some of those pits looked extremely deep…

White spots on the outside?!?!?

Like the rest of the hull, Chris Craft coated the exterior of the exhaust pipes with bitumastic and silver paint. Out of curiosity, I looked at the outside and noticed three spots where there was a wee bit of white powder, AKA aluminum oxide, which is what aluminum turns into when it corrodes.

Houston, I think we’ve got a problem.

My steel pick when straight through the pipe with very little effort. One of the holes was big enough to put a 1/4-20 bolt through it; another was big enough for a 3/16″ screw.

Auxiliary exhaust ports?

When I saw this I had to laugh, thinking back to the fellow who sold the boat to me when he said all it needs is engines and a paint job.

With the OE exhaust system off the boat and the new side exhaust flanges at the paint shop, I focused on wrapping up the final work to get the hull ready for “the shiny.”

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

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Exhaust II

After working out the method on the port exhaust flange, making the second one was much quicker on the starboard side.

Hull is ready for the flange.

First, cut circles of 1810 biaxial

I’m using four layers of 1810 biaxial for the flange. Since the Centek exhaust components appear to be no thicker than one or two wetted out layers, the exterior flange should be the toughest part of the assembled piece.

My Wiss 1225 shears make the cutting easier

These scissors make a world of difference when it comes to cutting tough fabrics. They look like they’ve been through a big boat refit, but they’re still cutting well…even after chewing through that Kevlar we used to make the bullet proof cabin top.

The system will eventually look sorta like this

Wetting out the 1810 biaxial for the flange

Once the fiberglass is fully wetted out, I lift it into place on the hull. I’ve already put the blue tape around the hull opening and applied mold release wax carefully to it so the finished part will pop off easily.

Two layers down, two to go.

I wrapped the flange layer inside the pipe on the bottom. On the top, where the pipe sticks out a bit, I applied another strip of wetted out 1810 on the inside that extends out and joins with the outer layer. The finished part should be quite robust.

Once again, I hot coated with homemade fairing compound.

The fairing compound is the same US Composites 635 thin resin thickened with a 1:3 ratio of cabosil and microballoons that we used elsewhere on the boat.

Initially I liked US Composites epoxy, but the more I use the stuff the less I’m impressed. While their 4:1 fast hardener will smoke in the pot in no time on a hot day, it takes way too long to set and a whole lot longer to cure than West System. With US Composites, you can sand the fairing compound the next day IF it’s warm enough overnight. With West in identical conditions, you can start sanding in two hours. If I had to do it all over again, I would have saved a ton of time and money and just bought a barrel of West resin from the start.

The one plus point for US Composites is that if you’re wetting out plywood edges or otherwise trying to seal up a piece of wood, the fact that it takes forever to set and cure seems to allow it to wick in further than West. That’s just a guess though.

Anyway, the following day I popped out the two flanges and continued fitting them.

Nice fit to the hull curve

Before popping the parts off the hull, I drilled the holes so the flanges would bolt up exactly as they were molded. Even without bolts holding the parts in place, they fit right up to the hull.

Nice fit but kinda furry

Ground to a rough finish and ready for the Boatamalans

I used a 5 gallon bucket to trace out the circle…the same bucket I used to outline the 1810 fiberglass fabric. Then I hit it with a grinder and sanded back to the line.

New exhaust system is roughed out.

I need to weld up some 6061 angle and make a platform for the muffler, but otherwise the exhaust system is ready for the paint shop.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Exhaust III, Decommissioning the OE System

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Final Awl Grip 545 Primer on the Aft Enclosure

Summer was long and hot, which made it virtually impossible to continue with the paint work on the boat. Once we hit August though, temps dropped to the point of being almost unseasonably cool. The goddess of the seas, who I believe has a soft spot for old Chris Craft enthusiasts, was finally cutting me some slack–temps inside the tent were perfect for painting. We took advantage of the break and sprayed the aft enclosure with the final coats of Awl Grip 545 primer.

We initially planned to spray the 545 on the aft deck in May 2013, the weekend after we sprayed the last coat of Awl Quik. But my mother-in-law passed away, then June came in like a blast furnace, followed by all of the work on the aft enclosure coming to a stop when I discovered that the SMIB fabricator who built the enclosure had put a wee bit of twist in several of the panels. It was late July before I finally solved the problem of how to put flat windows into slightly twisted window frames.

Anyway, in the spirit of “better late than never,” it was good to finally get the final primer on the stern.

Finally! Smooth Awl Grip 545 covers the aft enclosure.

The cockpit aft panel turned out very nicely.

With uniform white primer over the whole enclosure, it looked like the time we spent making fillets and fairing the seam where the panels were stitched together was well worth it.

Window frames are looking good.

Chris Craft used a hard inside corner along the curving line at the aft end of the hard top, both of which were cracked on this boat. We ground out the cracks and did a proper fiberglass repair with fillets to reduce stress in the area. I think they look much better than hard corners, too.

Crack repair and fillets look good (upper left corner of the pic above).

Fiberglass window frames integrated nicely into the aft enclosure.

Fillets smooth out the joint and add a nice touch.

Awl Grip 545 on the underside of the hard top.

If you look closely, you can see that even the 545 has a bit of shine to it. The guys did a great job making this all very smooth and uniform. If it shows this well in primer, I can’t wait to see it painted with Awl Craft 2000 Matterhorn white! 🙂

The hatch hole on the bow deck

We found that the area immediately around the hatch on the bow did not follow the smooth crown of the deck. It was slightly lower than it should have been, which would have caused water (and dirt) to collect around the hatch-to-deck seal rather than running off as it would with a proper crown. We applied a bit more of the home-made epoxy fairing compound made from US Composites thin resin thickened with Cabosil and 3m Microballoons in a 1:3 ratio to build up the deck, then longboarded it fair and sprayed Awl Quik before applying the final 545 primer.

Ready for final sanding!

The black paint is a guide coat for the final sanding. Using Mirka Abranet 320 grit disks, we only sand enough to remove all of the black paint. This avoids the problem of putting divots in the faired surface by sanding too much with the dual action sanders. The black paint also helps show pinholes and tiny low spots.

With 545 coating the aft enclosure, helm dashboard and bow deck, we’re ready for final sanding and then paint.

I’m all giddy. 🙂

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer Refit: Shiny Mahogany Moldings on the Aft Enclosure.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Aft enclosure windows

With the prep work quickly progressing toward the day when we apply shiny Awl Craft 2000, I started cutting templates for the windows. I’d settled on a window manufacturer in Washington State that uses powder coated aluminum frames. This manufacturer’s design uses a clamp ring on the inside of the boat, with very precisely cut screws that thread into the back-side of the outside window frame. Since there are no screw holes on the outside, which are a common source of leaks, the clamp ring design is far better than most other window designs.

The one hitch with the aluminum-framed windows is that the tolerances are pretty tight: ± 1/16″. For all intents and purposes, there is no way to install these frames onto a structure that isn’t close to perfectly flat. Last week, I discovered that the welder who built my aft enclosure put twist into three of the six panels that have window openings, which induced an arc in the panels along the width of the window openings. The smallest arc had 1/8″ of deflection and the worst had 1/2″ , but all three were more than the 1/16″ tolerance the aluminum window frames could accommodate. This is in addition to the one panel he welded in the wrong place that was so bad I had to cut it off and relocate it a few months ago. Highly paid, incompetent “craftsmen” have been the bane of this refit since Day One…

After determining the aluminum framed windows wouldn’t work, I considered Eisinglass but decided against it for a couple of reasons. The first was that the enclosure was obviously designed with windows in mind, so it would look cobbled together to use Eisinglass. Also, since the whole structure is bonded and faired to the hard top, the last thing I wanted to do was start cutting bits and pieces off or doing other major modifications to already completed work.

Next I looked into fiberglass window frames, but the quote came back at $1300 each (vs roughly $350 each for aluminum) and I need six of them! The fiberglass window manufacturer did say, though, that his windows using tempered safety glass can be formed to an arc. So that got me thinking about a DIY solution that might be just as good and save a bit of money.

Two 20′ pultruded fiberglass I-beams provide the window frame material.

The FRP I-beams measure 2″ x 4″ and are very lightweight and rigid. Step one was to cut the 20′ I-beam into pieces just a bit longer than the window opening dimensions.

Pultruded I-beams cut and marked for size

Slicing the I-beam length-wise yields two T-beams

FRP pultrusions come with radiused inside corners

The radiused inside corners would not allow the T-beam frames to sit tight to the aluminum aft enclosure window openings, which have tight 90* corners. With a little milling, I knocked the radiused corners off.

A Freud top-bearing mortising bit on my Shop Smith made quick work of removing the radius.

With the pultrusions cut into usable T-beams, the next step was to dry fit, mark and cut each piece to make up the horizontal and vertical window frame pieces.

FRP window frames, rough cut and ready for bonding.

Vertical piece on the left, horizontal piece on the right, all rough sanded for bonding.

Nice, tight fit

Kerf cuts in the T-beam reflect the worst arc in the enclosure panel.

The shot above shows the solution to the worst arc the SMIB* welder put in the aft enclosure panel. The T-beam is tight to the window opening from the front edge to about halfway back, after which the window frame and panel curve in. You can see a 1/2″ gap at the lower right corner of the window opening. The arc begins to the left where the first kerf cut is. The kerf cuts allow the outside FRP panel to match the arc of the aluminum panel while still retaining the two-surface bonding area afforded by the T-channel shape. Tempered safety glass can easily be warped to fit and urethane will hold it all together.

*pejorative slang abbreviation for Southern Maryland InBred.

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

I used US Composites thin epoxy resin thickened with West System 404 adhesive filler to bond the T-channel frames to the window openings. Wooden scraps helped spread the clamping force over wide areas. Covering the wood with shrink tape first helps ensure that the clamp spreaders will release from the epoxy after it kicks.

One down, five to go.

Outside view; two down, four to go.

I removed the clamps and blocks once the epoxy started to take a set, then quickly applied a small fillet around the exterior perimeter of the frame. The fillets are made of the same home-brew fairing compound we used on the cabin top and elsewhere on the boat. It’s based on the same US Composites epoxy resin and hardener as the adhesive, so the fillets make a perfect chemical bond to the adhesive epoxy that squeezed out of the clamped joint. Instead of West 404 adhesive filler, which is brutal to sand, I use a  2:1 ratio of 3M microballoons and Cabosil in the fairing compound to make for relatively easy sanding. The fillets make for a cleaner, more integrated install, just like they did on the cabin top to deck joint and at the helm station dash pod. Fillets also eliminate the seams where dirt can collect.

Unfortunately, this most recent detour from “the plan” took almost an entire week to identify, brainstorm and resolve, and everything else was on hold until I worked it out. I’ve only got so much vacation time I can take in a given year, and I blew five days of it fixing this latest SMIB-inspired problem. Another down-side is that we wanted slider windows for better ventilation but they’re impossible in twisted frames. On the upside, the total out-of-pocket cost for aft enclosure windows just dropped by a significant margin since my labor is free (of course).

Ah well, it’s a boat…they’re all about the compromises, I guess. It sure would be nice, though, to have competent craftsmen whose work is commensurate with the $$$ they charge. So far, the only workers who consistently perform to a high standard are the boatamalan fairing and paint crew. Speaking of which…

Next up on our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer Refit: Painting “the shiny” on the cabin top and decks. 🙂

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Mahogany Toe Rail

OK…break time is over. Two weeks in Japan for a funeral followed by a week-long jet-lag hangover is all I can take…time to get back to work/play in the boatyard. 🙂

With the final Awl Grip 545 prime coat applied to the cabin top in mid-May 2013, the next order of business was to finish installing the mahogany toe rail that was rough cut back in early May. The toe rail has to be installed first because the approach we’re using is very different than what Chris Craft did originally. The biggest difference is that the boards are epoxied to the deck before we screw them down, as opposed to using bedding compound to seal the joint. The boards are also 1-3/4″ thick, as opposed to the original 1-1/2″.

The additional 1/4″ of thickness is hidden behind another big difference from Chris Craft and many other classic boat manufacturers’ approach to wooden toe rails: there is epoxy fairing compound and fillets covering the aluminum-to-wood joint. The fillets end 3/8″ or so above the joint, so there’s is virtually no opportunity for water to wick in between the wood and the aluminum deck joint below.

Gluin’ & Screwin’

First, we positioned the boards and clamped them in place. Then we drilled the screw holes and counterbores.  The screw holes went through aluminum deck. We then removed the boards and tapped all 196 holes for 1/4-20 screws. The next step was to mix up the epoxy and coat the bottom surface of all the boards. We had to coat the boards twice because the first coat really soaked into the mahogany. With the bottom side wetted out, we mixed the remaining epoxy with wood flour and coated the scarf joints, then troweled more epoxy and wood flour on the contact area of the deck.

Clamps hold the scarf joints together.

Machine screws threaded into the deck are the same way Chris Craft attached the original toe rails. But where the original screws were chromed bronze, we went through two boxes of 316 stainless screws to reduce the possibility of copper in the bronze interacting with the aluminum and causing corrosion. On the principle of “better living through chemistry,” we also coated each screw with Tef-gel before threading them into the deck. Tef-gel is said to be very good at eliminating corrosion caused by dissimilar metals.

Bungs give the rail a classic look

Initially, we considered doing the rail the same way they do at Weaver Boatworks, where they rely entirely on epoxy to bond the teak cap rails to their multimillion dollar sportfishermen. But the Weaver approach involves drilling hundreds of holes in the deck for clamps to secure the rail until the epoxy cures, after which the holes in the plywood deck are bunged and fiberglassed over. Since the Roamer is an aluminum hull with aluminum decks, I rejected the idea of drilling lots of holes.

We also considered using the original screw holes and screwing the toe rail down from the underside. But I’ve owned enough cars and boats to have condemned many an engineer who designs things without maintenance in mind. Inaccessible screws behind the cabinetry would not be maintenance-friendly, should any of the toe rail have to be replaced. So screws from below were a no-go.

While bungs present a hole in the top surface, though which water might migrate, that’s a concern only if we don’t keep up on the maintenance. Plus, I like the look of bungs…they add to the classic beauty, I think.

A shocking discovery the following morning!

I arrived last Saturday at 7am to find that the Boatamalans were already hard at work. They’d coated the entire toe rail with black spray paint…the same way they did when they were longboarding the cabin top. The downside of the spray paint is that it so completely covered the wood that you couldn’t see any of that beautiful grain. The upside came later in the day, when all the sanding was done.

Longboarding removed all the black paint… it’s ready for fillets

We first sanded the mahogany with 60 grit, then 120 and finally 240. The black paint guide coat really helped see low and high spots. We used that wonderful Mirka Abranet sandpaper–it’s expensive, but pays for itself in no time because it cuts like razors and lasts a good, long time.

Got wood???

Toe rail fillets and second story scaffolding

While the fairing crew was sanding away and then taping and applying the fillets in Awl Fair, I was building the scaffolding. We’ll need the second level scaffolding for painting the clear coat on the toe rail and for the AwlCraft 2000 Matterhorn white everywhere else.

Good lookin’ fillets!

The fillets here will serve the same purpose as they will at the helm station dash pod and along the cabin top-to-deck joint: they shed water and dirt far better than seams. They’re also much more aesthetically pleasing and should reduce maintenance.

On the inside fillets, we mixed up some homemade fairing compound with West System, cabosil and 3M , microballoons.

We ran out of Awl Fair, the red fairing compound, right on schedule. We’re fast approaching the end of the bodywork phase, so we’re trying to use up all of the canned materials that are open and have a shelf life.

At the end of the weekend, I cut the vent holes.

We won’t want to cut any holes like this after spraying on the shiny Imron MS1 clear coat.

Drill up from the bottom, then cut from the top.

Ready for Imron MS1!

Actually, the next step will be to sand the fillets around the toe rail, remove the tape, then retape over the fillet and spray the MS1 clear coat. Once we’ve got ten nice coats of MS1, we’ll tape off the clear coat, cover it with cardboard for protection, and then spray primer on the fillets.

If we can hold to the current schedule, we’ll be painting the topsides starting in two weeks!

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: “Shiny” on the Toe Rail.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Fillets & Final Touches on the Aft Deck Enclosure

We are getting very close to painting the Roamer. Once we start painting “the shiny,” as my chief Boatamalan calls it, the paint work and exterior wood will be finished in seven days. Finally…it’s been a long time coming.

But before that happens, we still need to wrap up some things around the aft enclosure. We really like the fillet approach we’re using on all of the hard inside corners elsewhere on the boat, so we’ll use that same approach aft. We have to longboard the Awlquik we applied the previous weekend and finish fairing the aft deck above the transom. There are also a couple of screw holes and cracks we found on the underside of the original hardtop. But that’s pretty much it.

Wow.

I can’t believe how short the honey-do list has become. 🙂

Fillets and touch ups after longboarding the Awlquik,

The aft enclosure panels, being 3/16 5052 aluminum plate, were already pretty flat. Three good coats of Awlquik on top of the Max Cor aluminum primer gave us plenty of material to longboard without breaking through.

The stubby deck aft of the enclosure is a particularly challenging piece because a lot of welding happened here when Chris Craft built the boat in 1969. A lot of welding means a lot of heat, and even ALCOA’s finest plate tends to warp when it gets really hot. The result is a lot of fairing compound — up to 3/8″ in spots, but with aluminum high spots only a foot away! This deck will be mostly non-skid, so we’re not spending too much time on the middle, but the Boatamalans take great pride in their work and they’re making sure the shiny rim around the outside and at the fillets will be faired true.

In all honesty, though, even in the spots where they don’t put much effort in, these guys make the panels truer than most of the boats you see at any marina. They’re used to doing things to Weaver Boatworks’ high standards, so even their sloppiest work tends to be very, very good. There have been a few times when I’ve suggested to my chief Boatamalan that maybe, you know, a particular area doesn’t have to be that good. It is, after all, a metal boat. Sometimes he agrees, but most of the time he responds with a friendly lecture about quality and I see his point–when you’re taking the time to do it just so, why cheap out on the last five percent?

Seam? What seam?

I have to say…I didn’t think the Boatamalans were going to be able to do much to cover the hard seam line on the aft enclosure back panel without using a huge amount of putty. But, as when we faired the cabin top, you put lots of fairing compound on, then sand most of it off and repeat. By the time you’re done with the six-foot, two-man longboard and sand until you just hit the first high spot, you’ve got a very true surface with the least amount of compound required. The seam has vanished!

FRP covers the aft threshold seams.

Good lookin’ fillets!

The secret to nice fillets is…cake-making tools. Yup. The same spatulas of varying widths with the rounded leading edge that cake makers use to artistically apply frosting works very well for fillets in fairing compound, too.

Fillets at the helm door

Almost ready for a sliding door track.

FRP crack repair

There were long “gelcoat cracks” in both corners of the hardtop. When we ground into them, we found the cracks extended into the FRP matrix. So, as with the cracks we found in the cabin top, we ground them down and did a right proper repair. If we’re taking all this time to prep for paint, it just makes no sense to not put in the slight additional effort.

Ditto on the port side.

We repaired an odd crack near the leading edge of the hardtop, too.

The top-side of the hardtop is already painted with the shiny and non-skid. We use two layers of 20-foot wide Sharkskin to cover the paint and protect it from overspray from below.

Finally done longboarding the bullet-proof cabin top.

And finally done with the bow seat, too.

The hatches under the bow seat are flat…but the panel is curved.

These hatches will allow us to take advantage of the compartments I built into the bow seat. Access isn’t the greatest, but they’ll be fine for line storage.

The hatch is the mold for the fairing compound.

First, I applied a layer of shrink wrap tape all the way around the hatch frame so the fairing compound doesn’t stick to it. Next, I applied fairing compound to the FRP panel around the hatch opening. Then I installed the hatch so the middle of it fit tightly to the bow seat panel, with fairing compound filling the gaps at the ends. I put fillets on the compound and let it cure. All I have to do now is pop the hatches out and fill pin holes. This is more or less the same approach we used when making the corners of the helm door openings.

And that’s a wrap 🙂

I’m beat.

Next up on our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Final Priming with Awl Grip 545!