1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: More Progress in the Laundry Closet

I have been super busy recently…even more than usual. But I’m still making progress on the Roamer. After fitting and insulating the ceiling panel for the laundry closet, next I made the dryer vent box for the rear panel and then painted everything with white-pigmented epoxy.

Making the dryer vent box

I need to put a box in the back wall of the laundry closet to make space for the dryer vent duct to go up to the porthole, where it will exit the boat.

The Kreg pocket screw jig helps with the last step for the bottom panel

The vent box and ceiling panel are ready for epoxy coating

White-tinted US Composites 1:1 ratio epoxy

Nice!

Next day, the epoxy is fully cured

Glue, screw, and clamp the box together

Next day, the box gets the Buffalo Batt non-woven fabric insulation treatment

Once the epoxy cures, it’s ready to install

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing Panels in the Laundry Closet

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Aft Stateroom Porthole Surround Panels III

My painter’s schedule still isn’t aligning with mine, so the stack of mahogany plywood panels that need to be clear coated keeps growing–the V-berth bulkhead, the aft stateroom head and closet/locker porthole surround panels. This boat also has porthole openings on the transom, but Chris Craft used fixed panes of glass there. I want to do things differently, by installing the same Bomar portholes as Chris Craft used on the ones that open. Chris Craft also painted the aft stateroom white on these boats, but we’re going with clear coated Mahogany everywhere outside of the bathroom.

Port transom porthole opening

The remains of two original panels can still be seen on the left side of the pic above. I used a sawsall here during the demolition phase years ago, so the cut edges aren’t straight. But the vertical panel will make a good pattern and the horizontal panel can still be used, I just need to remove it and square up the cut. In the linked demolition page, you can see that Chris Craft left the original fuel pipes exposed. I plan to box in the fuel inlets I made behind African mahogany panels, and provide a removable panel for maintenance access to the hose.

Remove the overhead horizontal panel

And remove the vertical panel

The porthole flange is wider than the original fixed window frame

Because the porthole flange is wider than the available space, I’m going to make more space by using 1/2″ plywood here instead of the 3/4″ that Chris Craft used. I’ll add 1/4″ spacer to all of the attachment points so the side of the new panel that faces the flange is inboard of where the original panel was. If that doesn’t make sense, hopefully the pix will tell the story.

A pretty piece of 1/2″ African mahogany plywood is just the right size

Tracing the filthy old pattern piece

The EZ-One tracksaw really shines on angled cuts

There’s only one 90° corner on this piece. All the rest are different angles. I have no idea how you could easily make these cuts on a traditional table saw, but with the tracksaw it’s a breeze. You put the panel on the wooden raised top. Drop the track bridge onto the panel, line up the marks on either end, turn on the vacuum and make the cut. Rotate the panel and repeat. The panel doesn’t move, the saw does, so it’s great in tight spaces like my boat salon. And even a complex panel like this is cut with perfectly straight lines in ~5 minutes.

BTW, I don’t get a commission for my tool reviews. When something works (or doesn’t) I like to share my experience.

The final 4′ cut

A jigsaw finishes the stringer cutouts

Plenty of room for the flange and for the porthole to swing open

Pre-drill the panel mounting holes, then use Tefgel with self-tapping screws

On the fuel inlet side, a leftover scrap of plywood is just the right size

It’s always a difficult decision when to keep or throw away wood scraps. Turns out the decision to keep this one was a good choice. There was enough to split it into two panels, one for each side of the boat.

Spray foam insulation is in the way

Cut back the spray foam insulation with a razor

After cutting to fit, drill pocket screw holes with my Kreg jig

Next, cut the 1/4″ porthole surround panel

Not too bad

I clamped a square to the overhead beam then clamped the long leg of the square to the inboard panel to keep it in place. If I do all of the fitting right, all of the other panels that are attached to that panel will be square, too.

One more panel with four angled cuts to hold it all together

Nice!

Two passes with the tracksaw makes a 1/4″ rabbet for the surround panel

Half-depth cut

Perfect!

Nice joints, eh!?

I think I won’t even need quarter round moldings to hide the joints. 🙂

Not bad for a weekend woodworkin’ warrior, if I do say so myself

That’s three more panels on the “to be painted” pile.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Aft Stateroom Porthole Surround Panels IV

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Aft Stateroom Porthole Surround Panels II

I got to the boatyard just after the crack of dawn and was listening to the radio when I heard news about “not my president” protests that were happening on President’s Day. My first thought was, these people need to get a hobby or something. I can’t imagine having nothing better to do than maintain a tantrum over having lost an election months ago. But then, I don’t belong to a political party, and I have the distinction of having never voted for anyone who ultimately won. I’m used to losing elections, so I take it in stride. Plus, I’ve got plenty of far better things to do. 🙂

While I wait for my painter’s schedule to match up with mine again, I’m cutting more 1/4″ African mahogany plywood panels that surround each of the porthole openings in the aft stateroom. Without those in place I can’t install the portholes, so getting the panels cut is mission-critical for taking the boat out of the tent. This time around, I cut the panels for the laundry and storage lockers, and the closet.

First, clear out the laundry and storage lockers and the closet

I really look forward to finishing up the walls in the laundry room, so I can finally get the washer and dryer out of the way permanently. Those things are heavy!

Starboard porthole surround panel

I split this 4′ x 8′ sheet of 1/4″ African mahogany plywood last week and fitted one half in the aft stateroom head. I used my EZ One track saw table to break this one down further still, since there are walls separating the laundry locker from storage and another one separating storage from the closet. I wrote about installing the aft stateroom walls a while back. Everything has been covered in ugly cardboard since then, so a couple of reminders of what they look like are may be in order.

1/4″ panel cut and fitted in the laundry locker

Nice fit…sloppy spray foam insulation overspray

I wasn’t careful enough taping off this area when I sprayed foam insulation, so I got some foam on the bulkhead separating the  salon from the laundry closet. It’s not a big deal, since the stacked washer/dryer will be in this space. I’ll clean up the foam later, before I wrap up this space.

Nice fit to the aft wall, too

This wall panel isn’t visible from the aft stateroom, so I used okume plywood instead of African mahogany.

Mark it from the outside, then cut out the porthole opening

Good fit

 

Screw holes are all countersunk

This panel is ready for ICA clear coat.

 

Next, rough cut the closet panel

This one’s tricky because the closet-to-storage wall lands right on top of a porthole. There was no other way to pull this off. The missus wanted a closet and a place to store laundry supplies. Who am I to ask why she needs both? And on other Chris Crafts I’ve owned, it was common for them to have walls split portholes like this.

Mark the opening from the outside, then cut

Nice fit

Screw holes drilled and countersunk

The storage locker is last

I ended up spending quite a bit of time cutting the spray foam insulation back so I can install these panels and also the ceiling panels that I’ll install eventually. The foam is 2~3″ thick in some places, but 1″ in most spots.

Nice fit

The joint between panels isn’t the prettiest, though it will look much better when the panels are clear coated. Either way, the porthole flange will cover most of the joint.

Screw holes drilled and countersunk

So, that’s three more panels that are ready for the painter. The stack of plywood needing clear coat is growing. Which means the stack of plywood that’s been taking up space in the salon is shrinking. This is a very, very good thing, since the plywood stack is a visible proxy for a progress meter. I’m really looking forward to the meter reaching zero.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Aft Stateroom Porthole Surround Panels III

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing New Glass in Portholes

With the new tinted glass installed in the salon and the forward hatch assembled, I’ve been spending time putting glass in the portholes, too.

Nicely painted porthole, wiped down and ready for sealant

Sikaflex 291 LOT applied all around

In goes the glass, then another bead of 291 LOT to seal the flange

I applied a strip of tape around the inside and outside edges of the window frame and flange, so the sealant that squeezes out mostly ends up on the tape. It’s a lot easier to pull the tape (and the sealant with it) than not to use tape and have a sticky mess to clean up.

New stainless screws and washers

When I disassembled the hateful portholes, I found that many of the original aluminum flange screws turned to powder when I tried to remove them. Not that I ever intend to take these apart again, but I decided to go with Tefgel-coated stainless screws when reassembling the portholes. I also used washers to protect the paint, since even the slightest breach in the paint coating will turn into the spot where corrosion in the aluminum frame begins. I’ve been buying bulk screws, washers, and bolts from Albany Fasteners. The prices are good, quality has been top notch, and they ship quickly.

Screw together, wipe off excess sealant, and pull the tape

One down, eleven to go!

Putting the first porthole together took two hours, start to finish. The second one took about ten minutes less. By the third, I was down to an hour and 45 minutes, and that’s about as fast as I can go. It looks like it shouldn’t take this much time, but it does. The tinted glass does look great in the white frames. It’ll be nice to get these installed over the winter.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Disaster Narrowly Averted & a Polisher upgrade

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing Porthole Screens

If I’m going to splash the boat in 2016, I need to get it water-tight. That means I’ve got to get windows installed. Last year I did a lot of work bringing the hateful portholes back from the dead. They turned out pretty good once they were painted, but what a bunch of work. Now I need to install the screens in them in preparation for the new tinted glass I’ll be ordering soon.

Shiny portholes are ready for re-assembly

You’d think that factory-made portholes would be cookie-cutter affairs…all the parts are cast in the same molds, then drilled and tapped one after the other in the same fashion. But if you thought that, as did I, then you’d eventually find yourself as frustrated as I was when I tried to reassemble the pretty portholes.

It turns out that the castings are all the same and the big holes are all the same, but the small holes around the perimeter of the glass flange and screen flange were drilled only in the same general location. Each flange only fits its original porthole. Having assumed they were all the same, I didn’t mark them on disassembly. With 12 portholes and two flanges each, the screen flange can be oriented two different ways, and 20 screw holes per flange that all need to be checked for fit, let’s just say it was a tedious afternoon sorting them out. Some of them would have a perfect fit for 18~19 holes, but somebody on the line hiccuped on the last hole and put it 1/16″ off. So…out come the screws and try it again on the next porthole.

Porthole with matching screen flange

Sikaflex 291 LOT caulk goes in the trough

Screen flange will moosh the screen into the caulk

Carefully lay the screen in place

New 316 stainless screws get a shot of Tefgel before being started one hole at a time

Screws in and tightened down, with good Sikaflex squeeze-out indicating a leak-free seal

Carefully trim with a razor knife

Done! Only 11 more to go!

Next up on our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Measuring For New Glass

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Aft Stateroom Wall Panel Install

Since the insulated galley wall install went pretty well, I decided to try the process out on some of the pretty African mahogany panels that go around the aft stateroom porthole openings.

1/4″ African mahogany panel finished in ICA base-coat clear

I added a cleat to secure the leading edge of the new panel to the bathroom wall

I cut out notches to make space for the hull frames on the transom

As you can see in the pics, the back-side of the panel is still bare wood. The plan is to get the final fit right, then coat the backs and all edges with epoxy. The ICA coating on the face will allow me to wipe off any wet epoxy with an ethanol-soaked rag. With the panel fitting to the hull and interior wall, the next step involved the missus holding the panel in place while I marked the porthole openings from outside.

Cutting out the porthole openings

Two down…

Good test fit at the transom and window cut-outs

African mahogany panel-to-panel fit is good, too.

Epoxy coating and insulating the back of the panel

On the galley panel I installed recently to test my insulation plan, I used 3M spray-on contact cement to adhere the Buffalo Batt polyester nonwoven fabric insulation to the cured epoxy protecting the back of the panel. I figured I could save a step by applying the insulation as I roll on the sealing epoxy coat. The missus was a big help putting her craft skills to work cutting the insulation to size, leaving room for the attachment points.

Insulation applied to port and starboard panels, then pressed gently together until the epoxy cures

Epoxy drippage from edge sealing was caught by tape

Tape comes off clean, leaving the edges sealed with no residue or stains on the African mahogany

If I hadn’t already finished the front face with ICA base-coat, the epoxy would have bled under the tape and stained the pretty mahogany.

Ready for installation

Nice!

The dead air cavity between the insulated hull and the insulated interior panel

The insulation gurus all say that dead air space between the outer and inner layers of insulation significantly adds to insulating properties of the material. Hopefully, this approach is worth the effort.

Before I permanently install these panels, I need to assemble the portholes and get some other things done. So for now, the panels are sitting in place, out of the way, covered in plastic, and protected from abrasion. With the heat of summer making it too hot in the tent to work up top-side, I’m getting myself into the engine room next.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Gantry Time II!

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Reassembling the Bow Hatch

With the hatch parts and portholes back from the paint shop, I put the hatch back together.

Clear threads, then add Tefgel

Originally, Chris Craft didn’t even prime these hatches on the interior surfaces. Corrosion between the cast aluminum and stainless screws made it very difficult to disassemble. I don’t plan on ever taking this hatch apart again, but the Tefgel should help keep corrosion from starting under the paint. It’ll also make it easier for the next owner when it comes time to paint the boat again.

More Tefgel on the hinge pins

Little silicone pads that came with the aft deck glass worked well to protect the paint from the Channel Lock pliers I used to drive the pins home.

Hinge reassembled

Slick Strip should make a smooth sliding vent

I’ve had several Chris Craft cruisers, all of which came with the same cast aluminum hatch, and the vent was stuck open on every one of them. In addition to painting the entire hatch, including all contact surfaces, I’m also going to try putting Slick Strip (adhesive-backed UHMW plastic) on all sliding surfaces. Hopefully, the vent will work for as long as we own the boat.

Slick Strip sticks well to new paint

Slick Strip for the fastener slot

Tefgel for the screws, Slick Strips for the sliders

Good lookin’ hinges and vent slider

More Tefgel on the hatch scoop grille screws

Done!

I plan to replace the original white glass with grey tinted to match the other windows and portholes. I’ll order all of the glass at the same time, but I’m not quite ready to place the order. I won’t know the final size or shape of the helm side windows until the helm windshield is installed. That’s coming along, but I’m having…issues.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Transom Steps

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: (previously) Hateful Portlights and Bow Hatch Out and Back from the Paint Shop

Things have been busy, so I haven’t been posting as much as I probably should. But lots of stuff has been going on behind the scenes, including some excellent progress on the hateful portlights and bow hatch.

Old portlights with lots of busted, evil screws

It wasn’t just the hundreds of stainless screws that broke off in the cast aluminum frames that were a pain, the gooey butyl they used to seal the portlights (sort of) to the hull added to the challenge. Once the screws were out and the butyl removed, I sent the whole shebang out to be blasted in preparation for paint.

Box o’ blasted portlights

The old cast aluminum cleaned up pretty good. Turns out the hardest thing to remove was that DAP-like window sealant that had hardened. The blaster called and said the aluminum was softer than the hard sealant. I thought about it for a while and remembered that some of the old sealants were oil-based…linseed or some such. So I recommended putting some vegetable oil on the stuff that just wasn’t coming off. The blaster called back two days later to report that the oil did the trick, softening up the rick-hard sealant.

V-berth portholes were galvanized steel!

I wasn’t sure what material the V-berth round portholes were made of, though it was obvious from the weight they weren’t aluminum. I also knew paint didn’t stick to them at all. Turned out they were heavily galvanized steel. We’ll find out if modern epoxy and urethane coatings work and look better than the ol’ zinc on steel.

Shiny bow hatch bits n’ pieces are ready for coating

We used the same process on all of these aluminum parts as the rest of the boat: mechanically prep the surface with blasting, then Alumaprep and Alodine, followed by Awlgrip Max Cor CF, 545, and then Awlcraft 2000.

Et voila! Shiny portholes!

Unhateful portlights!

The interior-facing parts are white, while the exterior screen flanges match the blue of the exterior accent stripe.

Scha—-weeet!

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Reassembling the Bow Hatch.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Window Pains

I’ve been working on refitting this 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 since late in 2007, but by far the most tedious, frustrating work has been trying to get windows back in the boat.  “Window pains,” indeed.

Way back in early November 2013, I started digging into the (hateful) aft stateroom portholes, which continue to be one of the most tedious parts of this refit thus far. There are 40 screws in each of the ten original, cast aluminum portholes, and the vast majority of them require drilling to remove. The window glass itself is bedded with a material that’s similar to DAP, and like all very old DAP it’s as hard as old limestone. And judging by the corrosion I’m finding in all of the screw holes, the old DAP didn’t seal particularly well, either. Then there’s the butyl tape Chris Craft used to (kind of) seal the portholes to the window openings and interior plywood…sticky, nasty stuff that resists removal with a scraper.

Hateful screws and a gooey mess

Aluminum screws and sealant that’s turned to stone on one side, with stainless screws and sticky butyl tape on the other. In the pic above, you can see all of the broken heads of the stainless screws holding the flange for the screen in place. Since they’re stainless self-tappers, drilling them out requires a two-step process…very time consuming.

Hateful, nasty little screws

The slotted round-head screws on the paper towel are made of aluminum. They’re used to secure the flange that holds the glass to the frame. The ones on the top of the frame have been fairly cooperative in coming out–most have threads that are coated with white powder (aluminum oxide), but at least they come out. The ones along the bottom and the lower sides of the frames, by contrast, turn to white dust as soon as I put a screwdriver to them. My guess is that condensation on the window and frame runs downhill, collecting on the seam between the glass and flange. Since the DAP sealant has long since stopped sealing, all of that water ends up wicking down the threads of the screws and turning the aluminum to Al2O3.

The undercut, self-tapping flathead screws are stainless, and they’re used to secure the flange on the outside of the frame that holds the screen in place. Since they’re on the outside, they’ve been exposed to even more moisture than the aluminum screws on the inside of the frame. Moisture + dissimilar metals = corrosion, and very few of those danged stainless screws comes out without drilling a pilot hole, then following up with a 3/32 drill to remove the threaded part after the head breaks off.

Broken screws require brute force

Once I’ve got all of the screws out that will come out (and heads broken off the rest), I carefully pry the flanges over the broken off screws. Gotta be careful though, because these flanges are very thin cast aluminum.

Rotten threads pull out as the flange separates from the frame

More brute force to remove the broken screws

Et voilà! One flange removed!

The sense of accomplishment when I finally remove a flange is tempered by the realization that it takes about one hour for each.. And remember, there are two of them per porthole–one for the glass and one for the screen–and there are ten portholes on the boat. That doesn’t include the time it will take to remove all of the broken stainless screws that are still in the window frames, either! Don’t even get me started on them!

Of particular interest in the pic above, though, is the fact that the screen flanges have zero sealant or even paint on the back side. It’s no wonder most of the stainless steel screws that held this in place resisted removal to the point of snapping. But it gets worse…

Having snapped all of the drill bits I need for this part of the job, I’m in a holding pattern until new ones arrive. I don’t know what the deal is with modern drill bits, but they just don’t seem to last as long as the old set my grandfather had. I’ve tried sets advertised as “cobalt,” but they seem more like “cobalt colored” than the real deal. High speed steel and carbon steel bits round off almost immediately when I touch them to the stainless screws. And those “titanium coated” bits are just silly. They dull when drilling through pine! I used to think that “Made in the USA” was the mark to look for on machine tools, but I’m less sure about them now.

In any case, I can’t wait until this part of the job is done.

Next up on our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Window Pains II, the Helm Windshield

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Update on the Bow Seat Windows

Back in early November 2013, I was very excited to finally see my new bow seat windows arrive. While they looked great coming out of the crate, on closer examination I found problems with quality control on the welds and weld finishing that would almost certainly lead to premature coating failure. Sure, the coatings would probably last through the two-year warranty period. But since I’m paying far more for these three windows than I will for all of the other new tinted glass throughout the boat, I felt the quality should reflect the marketing claims of the manufacturer and the price.

After a bit of discussion with the manufacturer, Motion Windows agreed to take the windows back and remanufacture them to their usual high standard. That’s good because, in addition to the weld and paint work issues, I also found that the frames were not built to the dimensions I specified…two out of the three would not fit into the window holes!

Motion Windows’ auto CAD spec sheet for the starboard window

And for the center and port windows

1″ mark = zero

The pic above is the center window, and I’m measuring it’s height.  Note that I aligned the 1″ mark with the edge of the frame that fits into the window opening to avoid inaccuracy from the stainless piece at the end of the tape measure. The spec sheet indicates a height of 12-15/16″ for the center windshield, which was exactly the size of the 1/4″ plywood template I sent them. That template would go through the entire depth of the window opening without touching the sides…but just by a whisker. Everything should fit great as long as the windows aren’t made larger than the specification.

Since 1″ = 0, 14″ = 13″

As indicated in the pic, the window frame height is actually 13″, which is a full 1/16″ larger than specified. But it gets worse at the corners where the welds are…

Add 3/64″~1/16″ for the welds

Set the 1″ mark at the edge of the weld and…

It’s 13-1/16″ (because we started at 1″) on the far side of the opposite weld

A window that’s 13-1/16″ tall at the corners where the welds protrude cannot fit into a hole that’s 12-15/16″ in height. And if you look closely, that’s a heavy 13-1/16″…maybe even 13-3/32″. Either way, the windows are too big to fit in the holes, and I’m not grinding into my brand new Awlgrip paint job to make room!

Fortunately, Motion Windows did hold up on their end of the bargain. The windows are back in the crate and will be shipped back to the West Coast on Monday. I should get the new windows back in 30 days or so. While I’m not happy with the way things went, I have to commend Motion for standing behind their product and promising to improve their quality control.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Window Pains II