1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Painting the Galley Window Openings

The last week has been so hot, I didn’t even bother going to the tent. When it’s 80° outside, it’s near 100 in the tent. When it’s near 100° outside…forget about it.

But before it got scorching hot, the painter came out and finished painting the galley window opening crack repair. He also fixed a small crack that I noticed at the salon entryway.

Waaaaay back when we did the fiberglass work on the helm dashboard, this corner of the salon entryway was in pretty bad shape. The guys fiberglassed over the joint between the top of the mahogany panel and the vertical surface where the crack appeared. It looked like maybe the crack telegraphed through from that joint.

It looked pretty rough in 2013

Fiberglassed and topped with fairing compound back in 2013

Fast forward to 2019, and there was a crack that needed fixing. So the painter ground the area down, v-ed out the crack, wetted it out with epoxy and filled with wood flour-thickened epoxy. Then he put a small piece of fiberglass over the area he’d ground down.

There was a small crack there

Next day…looks pretty good!

No crack!

With the crack repaired, I can finally install the mahogany fascia boards here.

I entered the salon to find two mini spray booths

No cracks!

That’s much better

Nice!

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Safety Rails

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Galley Crack Repair

With the aft stateroom and V-berth headliners and LED lighting installed, the salon is up next. But before we can do that there are a few things that have to be done. One of those involves fixing some cracks that have appeared around the forward window openings in the galley. Unfortunately, the ‘before’ pictures are on a memory card that I misplaced a few months back.

So, to set up the scene, about a week after the salon cabin top got painted, I noticed long cracks showing up in the new paint inside the forward window openings. There was broken filler in there between the fiberglass cabin top and the wooden framing around each window opening when we first got the boat, and I’d specifically asked the guys to fix them. They did, but immediately after painting it looked like the cracks came back. I’ve wanted to have that fixed since late 2013 when we finished the exterior paint. Before we can install the headliner tracks in the galley, those cracks have to be fixed.

“Veeing” out the cracks in the original grey filler

New red Awl Fair filler the guys put in that didn’t bond to the surrounding substrate

I never want to have to do this again

After talking it over with the painter, we decided the most bulletproof approach would be to put in epoxy-based filler then top that with a layer of medium weight fiberglass mat.

New filler and FRP is in

That looks robust

Next day, trim and grind the fiberglass

That’s looking better

This is the last section that needs trimming

Fairing compound goes on next

Hopefully, this is crack-proof

That’s it for the crack repair. I wish the guys had done this properly the first time around, but I’d rather deal with it now than to leave the cracks. Even though they weren’t visible from outside of the boat, from inside the galley they were pretty noticeable.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Painting the Galley Window Openings

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”