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: Headliner Tracks & LED Bulbs

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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