1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Antennas

As part of getting all of the wiring done in the aft deck hardtop in preparation for installing the headliner, I had to get the radio antennas installed. I want to avoid having holes through the cabintop or deck and finally figured out a way to install these that accomplishes that.

I’ve had this Shakespeare Galaxy marine radio/cell booster antenna for a decade

I bought it back when I thought the boat just needed engines and a paint job. Turns out it needed a bit more than that.

My plan is to use an antenna base that clamps to the stainless safety rail, then run the coaxial cables through the stainless tubing. That means I need to be able to clamp the tubing in place while I drill some holes.

First, I drilled a 7/8″ hole in a 2×4

The handrail tube is 7/8″

Next, I split the 2×4

The saw blade kerf is less than 1/8″.

Tube clamp is ready to go

That works really well

Shop space is tight up at the bow end of the tent

Drilling the final 3/8″ hole

The original safety rail ends came back from the chrome shop

The antenna base is clamped to the tube, with the coax running aft

The cable hole is on the bottom.

Thread the cable through the rail end

Ready for caulk

The stereo antenna is pretty much installed

Back to the ShopSmith for the starboard side

I need two holes on this side for the marine radio and cell booster cables

Harbor Freight die grinder cleans up the edges inside and out

It’s more challenging running two cables through the tube

Looks good

That’s a wrap for now

I plan on opening a tube of caulk and installing all of the safety rails at the same time. So I’ll leave the aft ends loose for now.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: One-Mile Ray Search Light Install II

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Aft Stateroom Headliner Prep

NOTE: If you got two notifications about this article, I apologize. My email subscription provider “updated” his app recently without apparently beta testing it. The new version is completely buggy, so I and many other users have had to switch back to the old version, which, unfortunately, is permanently set to auto update. I published this article this morning, but it doesn’t appear that any notifications were sent out. So I’m trying to republish after having reverted to the old email app. Hopefully, the notifications will go out properly.

The Whisper Wall headliner I’m going to use has tracks that hold the material in place. The perimeter track butts up against walls or other vertical surfaces around each panel, and a separate track is used where the headliner material joins another headliner panel. Which means there need to be horizontal panels for the track to attach to where there are walls around the perimeter. So I’m going to be spending several weekends installing lots of little plywood panels to fill the gaps between overhead frames and give the tracks something to sit on.

The perimeter track is the one on the left

Gaps between frames are all different

The biggest horizontal panel will secure the aft head sliding door track, too.

Good thing I kept this 3/4″ okume plywood scrap

That’s about right

Not bad, but I need to knock a bit off in the middle

Plane it down to the pencil line for a perfect fit

It’s amazing how much trouble 1/32″ too much material across only 2″ in the middle of a 46″ panel can cause. Fortunately, a hand plane knocks that off quickly.

Next, I used my Kreg mini jig to drill pocket screw holes

1″ x 1″ mahogany cleat will secure the panel to the frame

There’s not enough room between the wall panel and frame to use pocket screws, so I’ll use a cleat instead. Everything’s dry fitted and ready to go.

Epoxy seal the top-side of the panel

After wetting out the cleat with epoxy, I applied wood flour-thickened epoxy glue

I clamped the cleat in place and went home. It was cold overnight, so the epoxy hadn’t fully cured by the next morning. But it was enough to hold the cleat in place while I installed the panel.

Next day, the panel is glued and screwed in place

Ready for door and headliner tracks and a valance panel

I’ll install a sliding door track here, but I also need to make a valence panel to hide the track. I’ve got plenty of mahogany in stock for that. The Whisper Wall perimeter track will then butt up against the valence panel for a nice transition from horizontal headliner to a vertical mahogany valence panel.

Does that make sense? It does to me, and I suppose that’s what matters. 😉

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Aft Stateroom Headliner Prep II