1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the OEM lights On The Aft Deck

It is such a pleasure coming up the ladder to the aft deck and NOT seeing ceiling frames or insulation. That Whisper Wall headliner makes a YUGE difference not just in the appearance of the aft deck…it’s good for the soul. The IMTRA LEDs and Infinity Kappa speakers are very nice, too, but I still need to wrap up the OEM light fixture upgrade and install.

I’ve  been trying out different kinds of LED lighting, from the stick-on strip lights you can buy on Amazon that I used for engine room lighting, to 12v ‘corn’ LED lights on ebay to replace incandescent bulbs in OEM fixtures in the salon. What I learned from my ‘temporary’ knockabout boat, a 1968 Chris Craft Commander 42, is that the corn lights cannot tolerate heat. The OEM fixtures on our Commander are open-ended on the bottom, but there’s no way for built up heat to escape from the top. So they cook. Which is fine for glass and metal incandescents, but these LED corn lights are in plastic frames that melt and twist and eventually fail long before their claimed service life is up.

So…if you upgrade to corn bulbs in your OEM fixtures, make sure there’s a chimney hole or two…or more…for the heat to escape.

Ventilated OEM Chris Craft light fixture

I stewed for ages over how I’d protect what I thought was chromed steel if I drill vent holes in the reflector. This is a boat, and rusted steel doesn’t reflect light quite as well as shiny metal does. Imagine how surprised I was to find out that they’re just stamped aluminum.

With the corn bulb in place, you can’t see the holes…not that that matters

Oh, and the missing section of OEM cork gasket…that’s the air intake. I didn’t plan it that way, but from a physics perspective if there’s a chimney vent for heat there has to be an inlet for the cooling effect to work efficiently. Also, for these fixtures, 10w corn bulb LEDs are as bright as you can go. the 12w and 15w units are brighter, but they’re too wide and stop the glass and stainless trim ring from closing.

Upgraded OEM light fixture installed at the helm station

I like it!

The aft switch is for the IMTRA LEDs.

This is making me very happy!

Now for the aft-most OEM light fixture to fill that last hole

This fixture was in slightly rougher shape, so it got the full Collinite 810 treatment

The ‘air intake’ gasket gap on this one is slightly larger

Think of it as better cooling…like an intercooler for an ultra high-tech LED light upgrade…not as a brittle, busted up cork gasket.

Ready for showtime!

NICE!

That wraps up almost all of the aft deck headliner work. The only thing left is installing the One-Mile Ray searchlight controls, but that can happen much later. But I still have some mahogany panel work on the aft deck that has to happen if the plywood stack is ever going away. When the plywood stack is gone, the project should be done.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Helm Station Side Cabinets

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Wrapping Up the Salon Headliner Install

There are four areas on the boat that have headliner. We wrapped up the aft stateroom headliner first, followed by the V-berth. The salon headliner has been come along nicely, and now…it’s done! Which leaves only the aft deck ceiling, and that’s going to be a huge job…but all good things in due time.

The last few panels are going in today!

Prep work takes forever…the final touch is done in a blink

This is gorgeous

Safety rail hardware is hidden up behind that Whisper Wall panel

That’s just….so nice

Spray foam insulation is great. But looking at it every single weekend…I didn’t realize how oppressive it was. LOL I can get used to this Whisper Wall Ostrich Gelato.

OK…time to stop admiring the headliner perfection, bust out the razor knife and start slicin’ and dicin’.

Second to the last Kai LED light hole

I still get the willies when I cut through the headliner material. It’d be pretty hard to make a mistake at this point, but I still get nervous.

Check it out!

In case you were wondering, this is what I was hoping it would look like

A while back, after I posted one of the articles about prep work for the headliner, a commenter said something to the effect of “I think I see where you’re going with this.” That’s when I realized that just because I’ve got a vision in my head of how it will turn out, and I do my best to explain in this blog what I’ve got in mind for next steps, it’s maybe not equally clear to readers what I’m aiming for. I’d appreciate any comments letting me know how close I’ve come to YOUR impression of how this was going to turn out.

The last Kai light is in

Time for speakers!

I went with Infinity Kappa 62IX speakers throughout the boat

I considered hiding the speakers up behind the headliner, but I find these to be visually very appealing. And though I’d be the first to admit I’m not an audiophile, the sound is terrific. It’s really amazing, the difference between the Pyle shop-grade speakers I’ve been using and these.

The salon headliner is (pretty much) a wrap

The last headliner-related task will be to make the little hatch panel to access the under-side of the dashboard. But that can wait. For now, I’m calling this part of the refit done!

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: V-birth Moldings

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Salon Headliner Install II

The salon headliner installation is moving right along. We got three panels installed on Day One. Day Two went smoothly, with two more panels installed. It looks absolutely great! But I also had to deal with a climate-related epoxy mess.

It’s been hot in the tent

My tent is great at protecting the boat from the weather, but the plastic skin is also really good at holding in heat. When it’s a beautiful day outside, it’s roasting in the tent. And the higher you are, the hotter it is.

When we were installing the aft stateroom headliner, I moved a bunch of supplies from the work space to the salon. I’d never had a problem with epoxy spilling from its container before, but apparently moving it from the relatively cool floor of the aft stateroom to the hotter salon floor was enough to cause a problem. My theory is that as the air in this 1/4 full can of West System 207 hardener heated up, it expanded and pushed the hardener out of the pump. What a mess! I’ve never had this problem with US Composites epoxy.

While I was cleaning up the epoxy mess, the headliner installer was busy at his craft.

First, he pushes the headliner into the track in a few spots

Whisper Wall Ostrich Gelato is pretty stuff

Pulled up and tacked in place on the forward edge

First, push the material into the track with the spatula edge

Then push the spatula handle forward and roll the material into the track

Rinse, lather, repeat

The final stretch on the first panel

I got out of the installer’s way and came back the next day to find two panels installed. Ready for lights!

First, feel around for the soft spot

Hold your breath and stab through the new headliner

Cut the hole in the headliner, then plug in another new Kai LED

Springs snap the Kai LEDs in place in the 1/2″ plywood panel behind the headliner

Nice!

The OEM light fixture hole is much bigger

10w 12v corn LED bulbs work well in the OEM light fixtures

Then I installed more Kai LEDs

And that’s a wrap for the day

There are three more rows of headliner to install and the salon will be looking much better.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Wrapping Up the Salon Headliner Install

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The Salon Headliner Install Begins!

Well…this has been a long time coming. The salon headliner installation has officially begun.

I do like it when I arrive at the boat and find contracted work competently done

That Whisper Wall Osterich Gelato looks outstanding

Thinking back on what a hassle it was getting those LED mounting panels installed at just the right height…it was well worth the effort.

The leading edge turned out great!

Next, I took out my razor knife and started slicing and dicing the new headliner.

Cutting holes for the Kai LED lights

Another light hole and one for a speaker

The recessed Kai LEDs use springs to hold them up inside the 1/2″ plywood mounting panel

New Kai LEDs and an OEM light fixture for the galley

These 10w 12vdc LED corn bulbs are the biggest that fit in the OEM fixture (75w incandescent equivalent)

I found these lights on ebay.

AND THEN THERE WAS LIGHT!

That OEM fixture was on the boat since it was new in 1969. My research concluded the boat went on the hard back in the mid-80s and didn’t move until I found it in late 2007. I didn’t power up the 12v breakers until December 2018.  Which suggests that this fixture hasn’t turned on in something like 35 years.

I had a big ol’ grin on my face when it lit up. It’s funny, the stuff that makes me happy.

The OEM galley fixture has a separate switch from the Kai lights

Two more Kai lights have to go in on the port side

One more to go

Done!

That looks sooooo much better with the headliner installed. It’s just a thin piece of fabric, but it makes a HUGE difference.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Salon Headliner Install II

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Wrapping Up the V-berth Headliner Installation

The good news is, the aft stateroom headliner install is done. The bad news is, it’s summer in the Mid-Atlantic region, which means high temps and miserable humidity. It’s actually not bad if you’re out boating, and I’m very glad to have a 1968 Chris Craft Commander 42 knock-about boat for that sort of thing. But for doing a refit in a plastic tent, East Coast summers are the worst . When it’s 85° outside with a nice breeze, it’s 110° with no breeze inside. Want to do woodwork? Good luck with that! There’s nothing quite like dripping sweat all over raw mahogany or plywood to ensure an awesome finished product!

My solution is to show up at or around the crack of dawn and work until noon. That works OK, unless overnight temps are in the high 70s or higher, in which case it’s roasting inside once the sun comes up. So…progress is going to  drop over the next few weeks as I get through another round of the dog days of summer. With a forecast of ~100°F for the weekend, I’d much rather be on the knock-about Commander than stuck in the tent. That said, the show must go on (albeit heat-adjusted).

When last we were in the V-berth…

Two panels in, two to go.

Whisper Wall Gelato Baby Osterich looks shinier in the pic than it is in person

That’s pretty stuff

That looks much better than the Tiger Foam insulation!

Cutting holes in brand new headliner is always exciting

I have to say, I feel incredible relief when I cut the hole in the headliner and immediately find the wiring. I keep expecting the installer to have pushed the wiring so far out of reach that we have to pull the Whisper Wall to re-orient it. But thus far, on the wiring, this contractor has been performing up to my expectations.

OEM “hourglass” light switch is on

“And then there was [Kai LED] light!”

Next light goes near the head doorway

Before the last panel was installed…

…and after

That’s a wrap on the V-berth headliner install. I still have to get the guy to install the Whisper Wall around the bunk area, after which we’re about ready for the final ICA top coat spray. But because of the brutal temps in the tent, we won’t be spraying varnish until at least the fall of 2019. Which is fine, because there’s lots of other things to do before this boat splashes.

Circling back again to that thing about scorching summer heat and knock-about boats, I wanted to mention that Steve at Flagship Marine has been a big help getting a new-to-me air conditioner up and working in the V-berth of my Commander 42. He’s also the one I worked with on the new AC units I’ll be installing in the Roamer. I don’t make anything off of the referral, but if you’re looking for top quality marine AC, I encourage you to ping Steve.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Galley Crack Repair

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Aft Stateroom Headliner Installation II

When I wrote about starting on the aft stateroom headliner installation, the expert had done three Whisper Wall panels. With the entryway and head sliding door box varnished, it’s time to finish up the rest of the headliner install.

When last I posted, three panels were installed

The Whisper Wall installer came and got busy.

That’s looking great!

The aft hatch opening

That’s going to look super with the mahogany trim ring installed…soon.

Looking good

Aft looking forward…more panels!

Aft head sliding door box turned out very nicely

I really like that Whisper Wall headliner

Entryway headliner panel and light switch turned out good, too

This is a 3-way switch

I’ll install the counterpart to this switch near the head of the bed, so the lights can be turned on and off from either place.

The entryway sure looks better than what I started with!

That overhead beam looks great with the headliner installed!

Next, I went to work with a razor knife and a sharp pair of scissors, cutting holes for the light fixtures.

Kai inset LED lights are ready to install

First, cut the hole and fish out the wiring

Plug in the light

Pull the springs back and slide the light home

The springs pull the light up tight to the headliner

Sweet!

The last hole was for the OEM light

10w 12vdc LED corn bulb fits perfectly in the OEM fixture

I bought these LED corn bulbs on ebay. I bought a bunch with different watt ratings. It turns out that 10w bulbs are the biggest that can fit in these fixtures. They put out as much light as a 75w incandescent, but at a fraction of the amp consumption.

Nice mix of old and new

The OEM light will give a boost to the closets. They all have portholes, so natural lighting will provide some light. The Kai LED lights I’m using elsewhere are 6 watts each. The additional 4w from the corn bulbs really light the place up.

Don’t need the 10w light? It turns off on a separate switch

Done for today!

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Wrapping Up the Aft Stateroom Headliner Installation

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The Aft Stateroom Headliner Install Begins

With two Whisper Wall headliner panels installed in the V-berth, the installer jumped into the aft stateroom to get more panels installed. While he’s doing that, I’m doing other, related things that I’ll be writing about soon. Even though there’s quite a ways to go on this refit, getting the headliner installed sure makes a YUGE visual impact!

I give you…the partially completed aft stateroom!

Well…that doesn’t suck

Turning to the starboard side as we enter, the view just keeps getting better.

Dang…that looks…awesome, if I do say so myself

 

The headliner looks great up against those new fascia panels

Keep in mind that Chris Craft’s approach was to paint all of the mahogany back here white.

I’m just sayin’.

Oh, and BTW, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the dedicated fans who’ve hit the tip jar. 🙂

Sa~~weeeeet!

Port-side closets look great, too

Close-up of the transverse track intersecting the perimeter track

One very cool thing about Whisper Wall is, you spritz it with water before installing, then it tightens up in the tracks as it dries. Need to get up behind it sometime later? No Problem! Just carefully work the fabric out of the track and pull it free. When you’re done, spritz it with water and drive it back in the track. When the water dries, the headliner will be tensioned like it is now. That’s a lot better than standard headliner, where you have lines of staples hidden by moldings. You can pull a standard headliner maybe once, but it’ll never look like it did when it was first installed. The staple holes are too unforgiving. And hard panels held up by velco…always look like hard panels held up by velcro. They’re not bad approaches, and I’ve used both on the other boats I’ve owned. But this Whisper Wall stuff…I’m really glad the Boatamalans* who worked for custom sportfish manufacturer Weaver Boatworks introduced me to it. Believe it or not, going with the same materials and methods used on multi-million dollar toys for rich people yields a better end result. Who knew???

*  Boatamalan: portmanteau indicating highly skilled boat workers of Central American origin. They’re actually from Honduras, but Boatamalan rolls off the tongue better. 🙂

Now…about all that wiring I did…

See how those ugly (yet perfectly positioned) plywood panels that the LED lights fit into don’t print through the headliner?

Yeah…I did that. 😉

Kai LED light ready for final installation!

I’m not using the dimmer feature that’s controlled by the white lead. When I want light, I want light.

But…trouble. I used a hole saw to cut the holes in the plywood panels that were ~1/8″ bigger than the Kai light housing. That left 1/16″ of clearance around the perimeter. But with the thick Whisper Wall material stapled up in the hole, the light wouldn’t go in!

And then there was light!

Since the fabric had already shrunk to its permanent size, I trimmed the material that went up in the hole. We’ll probably staple around the hole just to keep things stable.

No backing panel print-through

Booya!

Three Kai LEDs installed on the port side

And two more installed on the starboard side

I’m diggin’ this

6th Kai light installed at the starboard transom

If only that damned dryer wasn’t in the way…

All in due time…

Not a bad start!

Well, that’s a pretty good start to the aft stateroom headliner installation. I want to give a big shoutout to the Hatteras Owners Forum member who very generously donated a bunch of Kai LEDs that didn’t fit his boat. They look great on this old Chris Craft!

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Aft Stateroom Hatch Finish Panel

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Fitting the V-berth Hatch Screen Track

With the perimeter of the V-berth ready for the Whisper Wall headliner track to be installed, the last step is to get the supports installed for the hatch sliding screen tracks.

The screen tracks will need a bit of cleaning…some day

Half of the original hatch sliding screen framing is there

Like everything else, the original framing is fine for an OEM-style headliner. But because the Whisper Wall track is 1/2″ tall, I need to add some height to the existing framing and make new framing around the hatch opening.

Kind of like that

Cool Chris Craft switch controls the Kai LEDs

It looks better with the tent support 2×4 out of the way

Another thing I’ve been doing recently is cleaning up all of the stuff that hangs from the ceiling in the boat. The ceiling frames are a great place to stow woodworking clamps and electrical power strips, and I’ve got CAT5 cable for alarm components strung all over. And all of that needs to get relocated so the headliner can be installed.

The slider screen frame will seal up against the headliner with that fuzzy stuff…whatever it’s called

That’s a wrap

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the V-berth Headliner Tracks

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Headliner Tracks & LED Bulbs

This is my first post on my self-hosted blog, so hopefully the email notifications will go out properly. If you signed up for email notifications here but didn’t get a confirmation email, be sure to check your spam folder and white-list messages from this site.

I’ve been talking about Whisper Walls, the headliner material I’ll use, and how all of the new LED lights need to be positioned just so to match the height of the Whisper Wall track. I broke open the tubes of track and brought one of each to the boat so I could confirm I’ve been installing things properly. I’ll also be installing lots of support panels for these tracks around the perimeter of the aft stateroom, salon/galley, V-berth, and aft deck, and I wanted to have at least one track on site to make sure I’m doing this right.

Whisper Wall headliner tracks

Left side = perimeter track; right side = inside track

You should be able to click the picture and open the full-size version.

As I understand it, the installer will push the edge of the headliner material into the clamp part of the track with a fancy putty knife. The clamp part of the perimeter track has to butt up against a panel or solid stock that’s at 90° to whatever surface the track is attached to.

Marked off for screw holes

I found an installation manual online that indicated that, because of the high tension these tracks are under, there have to be #8 x 3/4″ screws every 2 inches. But the installer indicated that he uses a nearly continuous line of staples instead of screws.

The track is exactly aligned with the bottom surface of the LED mounting panel

That’s good news…I think it means I finally got those mount panels installed right. I’m going to leave that track there to keep it out of the way. I’ll let the installer permanently attach it and the rest.

I’ve also been messing with LED lights that fit in the OEM Chris Craft light fixtures.

10w LED looks good

It looks like there’s room for a bigger bulb

On the notion that ‘brighter is better,’ I ordered some 15w 12v LEDs, too.

Ebay purchase took a month to get here

Looks good!

Doh!

OK, so the OEM fixtures can only take a 10w corn bulb LED. The 15w units are a bit too wide, and it looks like the 12w ones are the same size. There’s one more LED option I’m looking into, but those are a month away, too. Stay tuned. In the meantime, the 10w bulbs are reportedly equivalent to ~70w incandescent but with a fraction of the amp draw. This is a great upgrade.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Porthole Gaskets

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Wiring the New Salon Lights and…a Problem

I was real happy with myself for getting all of the new salon light mount panels installed. So I got busy on the wiring for the Kai LEDs.

18 gauge cable for the LED lights

Let there be light!

New LED wiring is in place and temporarily hooked up

New wiring for a 50-year old light fixture

I’ll be replacing the old incandescent bulbs with LEDs eventually

50w incandescent is more of a heater than a light

The LEDs are 7w. All of them together have about the same amp draw as that one OEM bulb.

With the salon light wiring in, I grabbed my drill and poked a big hole in the salon roof.

The navigation and anchor light wiring goes up to the mast here

First, I used a hole saw to cut partially through the salon roof plywood

Then I went up topside and finished the cut

We made the cabin top ‘bullet-proof’ with a layer of kevlar topping the heavy fiberglass mat. I was concerned that the hole saw would catch and pull the kevlar rather than cutting through it. As I was starting the cut, I was imagining kevlar fibers yanking up big chunks of fairing compound and Awl Grip Matterhorn White. Fortunately, the saw cut through the kevlar like butter. You want to talk about feeling relief???

Next I wetted out the hole with epoxy

There are three big, chromed bronze machine screws that hold the mast base to the cabin top. I’ll have to add a 1/2″ plywood panel here, too, so the screws will tighten up against the headliner at the right height. But as I was thinking that through, I realized I’d made a big mistake.

When I was installing the new light mounting panels, I used the same sort of approach I’d have used for a conventional, perforated Chris Craft headliner that’s stapled directly to the overhead frames. The Whisper Walls tracks are 1/2″ high, so I just needed to use 1/2″ plywood for the  mounts, and make sure they’re lined up horizontally within each 54″ wide panel. Yeah, well…wrong. And the more I stared at those panels while I was doing the wiring, the more completely I realized that I had to re-do them.

Testing the theory

This scrap of 1/2″ plywood is the height of the track

And this scrap of plywood is pushed up against the frame 54″ away

Whisper Wall fabric is taut and flat when it’s installed. So the straight edge between the two scraps of 1/2″ ply is on the same plane as the headliner fabric will be. The overhead light mounting panels need to be on the same plane.

Houston, we have a problem

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Redoing the New Salon Light mounts