joinery « 1969chriscraftroamer46

We’re working on getting the aft deck headliner installed now, which means I need to cut and dry-fit a lot of solid mahogany and plywood. Unfortunately, this part of the refit started with me discovering that the Boatamalan painter had only returned one of three big mahogany pieces from the paint shop. They were the big boards that spanned the top of the windshield frame, and the leading edge of the headliner needs to butt up against them. Rather than trying to make new wood match the old stuff, I decided to just use the recently resawn mahogany boards and make new ones.

Need to trim the helm forward mahogany boards

You can see a crack on the board face

Since I had the boards resawn, what I’ve got is two mirror-image boards with identical grain on the cut faces. I’ll use the portion of the boards that have this attractive knot eye on the port and starboard sides.

Trim off the crack with the EurekaZone track saw

It’s just a tiny little crack on the edge

But was a big mess inside the board

Same thing on the other side

This crack needs trimming, too

After a whole lot of miter and bevel cuts and edge routing, the boards are rough fitted

Pretty good joint

The center board is a bit too thick

Running the center board through the thickness planer greatly improved the joint tightness

That’s looking better

Starboard side is looking good, too

That grain is really going to ‘pop’ when these are varnished.

Looks good!

Next day, I cranked out a couple of corner pieces

These will be used to join four plywood panels

That ought to do

Looks good!

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Aft Deck Mahogany Panels

The V-berth paneling is just about done. I have to say, it turned out pretty darned nice.

Marking off the plywood panels for the ‘shelf’ around the V-berth

Measure the angle from the shelf to the curvy walls

I could rely on the bevel and epoxy to hold up the back edge of the shelf panel where it will meet the curved side wall. But I decided to make angled cleats just to make the joint more robust.

Cleat angles look about right

They’ll get glued and screwed on here

Mark the cleat locations

Then cut the Buffalo Batt insulation for the under-side

Insulation is epoxied in place…they’re ready to install!

Cleats are glued and screwed in place

Next, I wetted out all of the joints with epoxy and started installing panels.

Epoxy thickened with wood flour makes strong glue

Base panels are installed

Next, I saturated the base panel top surfaces and the under-side of the pretty ribbon stripe mahogany 1/4″ plywood with epoxy. Then I mixed up some wood flour-thickened epoxy, brushed on a thin coat, and installed the mahogany panels one by one.

Pressing the mahogany panel in place

I wonder sometimes how professionals would deal with this sort of situation. My solution is to put shrink wrap tape on solid blocks of wood, and use that to press the veneer panel to the base. Epoxy doesn’t stick well to the tape, so if I miss some epoxy when I’m wiping the panel with alcohol after I put it in place, the solid block of wood pops free very easily the next day. Then I use scraps of 1/8″ and 1/4″ plywood as springs between the overhead deck framing and the solid blocks that press the mahogany panel onto the base.