1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Still More Chrome!

One of the things that convinced me to bring this boat back to life after 25 years on the hard in Purgatory Row of a southern Maryland boatyard was it had never been looted or parted out. Since it went into dry storage only 15 or so years after it was built, all of the original 1969 fixtures and gadgets were still on the boat. One of the cool gadgets was a nautical themed ashtray that was in need of crack repair and chrome. I haven’t smoked in 30 years, but this thing is so cool and unusual, I decided to pony up the cash and have it repaired and replated. It just got it back from Hanlon plating along with a bunch of other chromed bits. Can’t wait to get to the point where I can install them on the boat!

Shiny!

Good lookin’ door latch parts

Pot metal window latches turned out pretty good

There are a couple of pits in the pot metal, but I’m not going to invest in the very expensive process of having these restored.

Stanchion bases turned out nice

Salon stair latches

Cabinet latches

More door knobs

And then there was this ashtray…

Gimballed cigarette/cigar dorade ashtray

The ashtray has space for two cigarettes on the left and right, with the wider space in the center for a cigar. Pretty cool, huh?

There was a crack in the base

…and a dent

Nice ashtray!

Not a bad crack repair

Dent? What dent?

In other news, I finally made contact with my painter. We’ll be digging back into the v-berth head before long. Gotta get the paint work done before it gets too cold! But in the meantime, there’s still plenty of stainless to polish.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Polishing the Bow Rub Rail

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: More Chrome!

One of the reasons we decided to start on this refit way back in late 2007 was that the boat had remained largely unmolested in Purgatory Row of a southern Maryland boatyard since the 1980s. Way back when I still thought all the boat needed was engines and a paint job, I sent the first batch of parts off to the chrome shop. They came back looking really good, and the original Edison toaster, the mermaid towel rack, and other original chromed parts are still sitting at the house, waxed and wrapped in paper. I had another pile of parts that needed to be chromed, but there was no rush as reality sank in and it occurred to me how much more work the boat needed before it was time to start putting shiny bits back on. Well, we’re finally at the point where we need to reinstall chrome parts that are needed for the boat to safely be on the water.

So I sent a pile of parts off to Hanlon Plating in Richmond, VA. Hanlon is a grandfathered chrome shop, which means they can use the super nasty, old school chroming process that reportedly results in a far more durable and attractive finish than the newer “environmentally friendly” chrome process. The results look pretty good to me!

To avoid lasting eye damage, you might wanna put on sunglasses. 🙂

BLING!

Main mast steaming light fixture

Steaming light housing disassembled

“Jetson” style anchor light housing

Safety rail stanchion bases

Safety rail stanchion tops

Bow safety rail parts

Safety rail angled base

Safety rail ends

A water inlet (AKA “limp dick water inlet” by Chris Craft aficionados)

Ol’ limpy with the OEM cap

Main bow chocks

Toe rail cleats and aft line chocks

Chris Craft cabinet handles

These mid- to late-60s Chris Craft cabinet handles are beautiful pieces of industrial art deco. They were in pretty good condition, but they’re pot metal and some of the plating had blistered. Some of the pot metal that had small pits plated over just fine, but on two of these the new plating ended up blistering.

These two look almost like new

These two blistered and will go back for another try

The way Hanlon Plating explains it, impurities that remain in the pits in pot metal can cause problems with the new plating. The solvent bath they put the parts into normally washes off before the parts go into the plating tank. But when tiny amounts of solvent remain in the pits, it causes blisters in much the same way that paint can get thinner pop, where trapped thinner tries to escape past the solid outside film of paint but instead makes a bubble. To ensure that doesn’t happen, there’s a tedious process of drilling out every pit in the pot metal, then tinning the drilled hole and filling it with silver solder. Then you sand the repair perfectly and replate. But that’s a process I’m unwilling to go through. Hopefully, these two blistered handles will come back better the second time around. Time will tell.

Toe rail cleat could have been buffed a bit better

Am I too picky for noticing this less-than-mirror-smooth polish job?

It’s not a flat surface, and it’d be a shame to polish through an edge trying to get that area shiny. I figure I can live with it, all things considered. But I do wonder how shiny these things were when new.

That’s a wrap for this load o’ chrome. I’ve got a few more items on the way, including that very cool marine-themed ash tray that came with the boat. I wonder what this thing will look like all rechromed and polished?

Next up on our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer Refit: More Tinted Glass!

 

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Interior Hardware (Chrome!)

While I can only work on the Roamer on weekends and holidays, there is quite a lot of stuff I can do off-site in preparation for things that come later. One of those is polishing chrome.  It turns out, there’s a lot of chrome bits on these boats.

This is about 1/3 of the pile

sloppy varnish work has value

As we all know, bare chrome that’s left without wax or other maintenance pits and degrades over time. Sloppy varnish work, while unattractive, coats the chrome and protects it for years. Fortunately, the previous owner of our Roamer was very, very sloppy with his varnish work: under it all, the chrome is in pretty good shape. Incidentally, on my Chris Craft Commander 42 the chrome was in brilliant shape, having been protected from the elements by a solid coating of cigarette smoke residue. It was nasty stuff to remove (a product called Awesome finally did the trick), but the chrome was like new underneath!

As-found vs a light polish

While most of the interior chrome is polishing up just fine and providing an outstanding workout for the muscles in my fingers, I had to hit a lot of pieces with paint stripper to remove the varnish residue, then polish and wax. But it was worth it.

Shiny!

The mahogany panel to the right of the pic above is one of many of the original cabinet doors we’re refinishing. We’re using Pettit stain and ICA clear coat. For as ratty as the interior was on this boat, it’s coming back to life very nicely!

The magical polishing goo…now obsolete Collinite’s #810 Chrome Wax

I’ve had this can forever. I think it came with the 1967 Connie 52 I owned a while back. Great stuff, but apparently it’s no longer made.

Next up on our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The Windshield Frame Saga Continues

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Classic Chrome Bits & Pieces

Shiny chrome is awesome.

Waaaay back in 2008, after we dissassembled the Roamer, I sent quite a few of the original bits and pieces off to be rechromed. Thinking the boat only needed “engines and a paint job,” it seemed reasonable to get the chrome done because we’d be on the water in a year or so.

Yeah…right. What the heck was I thinking???

So the chromed bits have been sitting in a box in a corner of a room in my house ever since. For a while there, during the paperwork SNAFU, I thought I might sell everything on ebay. But eventually the paperwork problem got resolved and we’ve been working on that “engines and a paint job” thing ever since. With the paint job done last year, I’ve been wanting to install some of the shiny bits–especially ones that keep water out. To do that, though, I needed the right tool to make sure that every screw hole I drill and tap is perfectly centered in hole in the chrome component.

Shiny!

Clockwise from the top, that’s one stanchion base, handrail ends and center supports, the One Mile Ray spotlight, a fabulously rare Edison built-in Toaster, the mast base, a period-correct sea horse towel holder, the helm switch plates and hourglass knobs, and the Morse control levers and covers are in the center.

Installing the flag pole base

I picked up this flag pole and base on ebay. The original  was one of the few bits that had been liberated from the boat while it was on Purgatory Row in the Southern Maryland boatyard where we found it. Before drilling the screw holes for the base, I brought the pole to the boat and fitted it to make sure it was pointed in the right direction. A degree or two off on the base can make the pole very far off.

Vix drill bits: essential tool for centering screws in countersunk holes

Drill bit in a tapered, spring-loaded sheath

The taper centers and the sheath retracts, allowing the drill to enter the work.

This works pretty good!

The tapered Vix bit perfectly centers the drill

Et voila!

I’ve got another box of classic parts to send off to the chrome shop, but there’s one item I’m a bit stumped on.

1960’s nautical themed, fully gimgalled ashtray

Yes, that wire part is sized and shaped to hold cigarettes on the outside and a cigar in the middle. Try finding THAT at your local chandlery!

Dorade-shaped top…how yachty

Chrome is a bit rough, but the ashtray itself is all there and solid, too!

The thing is, I used to smoke. But ever since I quit, I pretty much hate the smell of it (unless the cigarette is freshly lit…but don’t tell the missus). If I have this chromed and install it, it might come across as an invitation to light up…and we don’t want that. But it’s such a cool period piece. What to do, what to do…

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: BURGLERIZED!!!