1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Helm Door Openings, Rounds, & Fillets

While I was transforming Tent Model IX from a storm-resistant winter tent into a spring paint shed, the fairing crew made good progress rounding all of the edges on the cabin top, finishing up the helm door openings, and putting more fillets into the remaining hard inside corners.

A black spray paint guide coat shows when the line is straight.

Once the line is straight through the middle of the rounded edge, apply another light guide coat of spray paint and make the next beveled passes.

Keep repeating until you’ve got a nice, consistent rounded edge along the entire length of the cabin top.

At the bow seat, a router makes easy work of rounding the edge.

We were able to use a router here because you’re basically working with a <90* corner. The outside edge, by comparison,  is >90*, so there’s no good, consistent place for the router bit roller guide to run up against.

Beautiful transition from small to large radius rounds.

This is why it’s good to have professional fairing crews who work on multimillion dollar boats do your fairing work for you. They make it perfect and they’re fast! In fact, one of the toughest things for a guy like me (who has a day job, house and family) is keeping up with (and hopefully ahead of) this professional crew from Weaver Boatworks.

The rounded edges and fillets on the bow seat are works of art, too.

They’ll look even better in primer and then paint!

The helm station door openings are nearly done.

I seem to have lost the pix I took of the fiberglass work here but, as with the rest of the FRP work we’ve done, there’s a layer of 1708 bi-axial mat over the two layers of 3/4″ marine plywood here. We’re using Awl Fair here to make it smooth, mostly because I had a couple of buckets of it left over from when we faired the hull in 2008.

The port side hardtop support from inside the aft deck.

This looks just a wee bit better than when we first found the boat.

Circa December 2007

Port side helm door opening from the outside in 2013

Again, I think it’s reasonable to say it looks a tad better than when we found the boat in 2007.

The top of the sliding door pocket.

Mahogany finished bright will make up the right (inner) side of the door pocket…after everything’s painted.

Fillets on the deck joint to smooth things out

As with the other fillet work we’ve done, these ones cover a strong 1708 bi-axial FRP tape that covers the deck to cabin-top seam. We still need to round the edges here, but there’s only so many hours in a day!

Hopefully, you were too distracted by the fairing crew’s outstanding work to notice the plastic film taped to the boat in some of these pix. That plastic film is a very, very good indicator that somebody’s been spraying some sort of coating…

If I wasn’t so dog tired, I’d be giddy! 😉

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The Hardtop!

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Transforming Tent Model IX, Helm Door & Fillets

Tent Model IX served its winter-time purpose extremely well, holding up without a hitch when Hurricane Sandy came calling and providing lots of space to get work done on the interior. Model IX was the culmination of years of shrink wrap tent-making failures and successes. With winter finally past us (maybe! It is, after all, only April!), it ‘s time to transform Model X into a paint shed.

I began by adding scaffolding aft and working my way around to the other side.

Since we’re not doing any heavy longboarding on the hull this time around, the scaffolding deck is down around where the water line will be. This should give the painter sufficient access to apply nice, wet coats of Awl Craft 2000.

Time to build the second story scaffolding.

The second-story scaffolding is just below deck level.

This scaffolding will allow the painter to step off the deck and paint the exterior of the aft deck enclosure, then step back onto the boat at the transom. A couple of cross braces make a huge difference in stability. The tent plastic itself will greatly add to stability, too, once it’s shrunk.

Reusing concrete forms for the scaffolding deck.

Back in 2008, when we first got the Roamer, I got a good deal on phenolic-faced 4×8 sheets used in concrete forms that are made with waterproof, boil-proof glue. I planned to use it as sub-flooring throughout the boat. But after buying it I found that the phenolic isn’t smooth and doesn’t stay attached very long–it cracked and peeled after a year or two just sitting inside the boat while I was straightening out the paperwork SNAFU. So I ripped it into 24′ x 96″ pieces and used it for the scaffolding deck.

The scaffolding decking is supported lengthwise with two 2x4s per section and more lumber at the ends. You can dance on it! I used screws so it will be easier to sectionally dismantle. If anybody needs a portable paint shed at a bargain price in a couple of months, let me know!

Scaffolding around the bow

There’s a step up in the right side of the pic that allows the painter to reach all the way to the rub rail at the top of the stem.

The long view down the starboard side looking back.

The step up at the bow.

Reused the old bow seat for scaffolding.

The white section of the scaffolding deck is the old bow seat that I cut off and replaced with something better. It follows the curve of the hull pretty good!

From the bow seat to the stern, the decking is all phenolic-faced plywood.

Putting up the paint shed skirt.

I’ll put a new sheet of shrink wrap over the top, but I need a skirt from the ground to about 12″ up because shrink wrap doesn’t come in 60′ wide rolls… and it would be extremely heavy if it did!

I cut this clear shrink wrap plastic off of our 1968 Chris Craft Commander 42 last weekend, in preparation for a spring cruise to see the cherry blossoms. The cruise happened but the blossoms have been delayed by unseasonably cold weather.  By splitting the Commander tent in half, I got enough plastic to do 2/3 of the skirt. Once all the pieces are in place, I’ll weld the plastic together with the shrink torch and tape up the seams. That should happen next weekend, unless the wind continues to blow like the dickens.

Meanwhile, on the inside of the boat…

The helm station door openings are now ready for fiberglass.

Since I last reported on the helm station door openings, we added strips of marine plywood to the steel uprights to make a pocket into which the doors will slide to keep out the weather.

Ready for FRP and fillets!

At the helm station, the dashboard fillets are also done and ready for sanding and primer.

Before: original dashboard pod seam–a great place for dirt to gather and hang out.

After: a nice and smooth fillet

FRP tape and epoxy holds the pod to the cabintop under the fillet.

That’s it for last weekend. Next weekend I’ll finish converting the tent to a paint shed, sand the fillets and prep the helm roof for primer.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The Helm Station Door Openings

Since 2007, when I cut off the old aft deck enclosure with a chainsaw, I’ve been developing a vision for how the helm station side door openings would work. Finally, over one week in 2013, the vision coalesced into pretty much exactly what I had in mind. I love it when a plan comes together! 😉

The helm station entry circa 2007 when we first got the boat.

The helm entry on both sides had been radically altered back in the 1970s. It was cut off vertically where the big C-channel beam comes down from the roof after that looooong 45* run.

Circa 2008: Reconfigured steel C-channel beam supporting the helm roof.

After cutting 3′ off of the sides of the fiberglass cabin-top as part of the deck and aft enclosure project, I cut and rewelded the steel C-channel beam so it’s vertical over nearly all of its length. This makes a stronger structure than original and also provides the forward edge of what will become the door opening.

Circa 2008: the stbd helm door opening

Fast forward to March 1, 2013.

Not much had changed here in the intervening years, but by 2013 I had a definite plan for how it would look in the end. The large, curvy block of wood is 8/4 mahogany stock that Chris Craft used to provide vertical structure to the sides of the cabin top. I’ll end up using it for molding somewhere. 😉

Weld area, FRP cut and rotten mahogany

When we replaced the teak side decks with new aluminum plate, we had to cut some of the fiberglass from the sides of the cabin top so we could fit the new plate and access the weld area. When we removed the old teak deck and rotten plywood underlayment, we found just a hint of rot in the bottom edge of the 3/4″ x 4″ mahogany board that the bottom edge of the cabin top screws to where it meets the deck. This rot, which was much worse in the bulkhead below it, was the result of the seam failing where the aluminum side deck transitioned to teak–a poor design if ever there was one.

2 sheets of 3/4″ Douglas fir marine plywood make up the filler piece between the fiberglass exterior and the helm door opening.

The fiberglass piece we cut out to weld in the new aluminum deck in 2008 is back where it should be…in 2013.

Ideally, we would have fiberglassed the plywood at the same time as the FRP panel, but the carpenter needs to finish making the “3rd side” of the box surrounding the steel upright. Once that’s in, we’ll FRP the whole thing and put in the final fillets.

Marine plywood frames out the helm station door opening in late March 2013.

Rather than using 8/4 solid stock like Chris Craft did to make up the filler piece between the side of the cabin top and the steel upright, instead we sandwiched two layers of 3/4″ doug fir marine ply bonded with US Composites 635 epoxy and wood flour/cabosil. The filler piece is screwed and glued in using the same wood flour epoxy mixture.

For the boxes around the steel uprights, we’re using 19mm okoume marine plywood that’s also screwed and glued in place. We have one more piece of okoume to cut for each side, then we’ll fiberglass and fair the entire thing in preparation for paint. On the inside, we’ll use solid mahogany stock rather than plywood and finish it off bright.

The window track drain is cut out and all edges are radiused for FRP coating.

The inside surface of the sides of the FRP cabin top is ground and ready for 1708 FRP.

The epoxy gluing the plywood to the sides of the cabin top is strong, but the joint will last forever if we put a layer of 1708 bi-axial fiberglass cloth over the joint.

The top o’ the box is bonded to the helm roof.

We will fiberglass this joint, too, but first we need to put a 3rd side on the box–a piece of 3/4″ okoume plywood on the steel beam that the door will slide up against when its closed. The 4th side of the box–on the inside–will be a solid piece of African mahogany. The outside face of the box and the solid mahogany facia board inside will be wide enough to provide a pocket into which the door will fit when closed.

Window track drain made of 1708 bi-axial fiberglass cloth wetted out with US Composites 635 epoxy.

All that remains to do is fiberglass and fair the plywood at the helm door.

With wet epoxy all over the boat, it was time to go home. I’m beat.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Fillets!