1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Helm Station Mahogany III

With the helm bulkhead refreshed with a new sheet of mahogany, I got busy on the cabinet on the starboard side of the helm.

1/2″ ribbon-stripe mahogany ply is rough cut for the helm side cabinet faces

Gotta tighten up that gap at the top of the port-side helm cabinet panel a bit

I broke the panels down with 90° cuts a month or so ago when I was racing against rain from a hurricane to get the plywood inside the tent. But the decks aren’t 90° to the bulkhead. They’re angled, so any water that comes in will flow aft and off the boat.

Gotta love the EurekaZone track saw for making angled plywood cuts

That’s better

Before I glued the veneer panel on the helm bulkhead, I was fitting the side cabinet panels

That’s better

That’s better…time for varnish

Second coat

That one-part urethane Spar Varnish is driving me nuts. It gums up the Mirka Abranet 240 grit almost immediately.

MasterMind plunge saw is a great tool for cutting cabinet door openings

Finish the corner cuts with the Makita jigsaw

The jigsaw blades have a bigger kerf than the little plunge saw.

That’s looking pretty good

Time to make a cabinet box frame

That nasty looking piece of cracked, half-painted 1″ thick mahogany must have come from the OEM forward head enclosure. I saved it because I knew it’d come in handy one day.

Today’s that day.

Chopping up 1/4″ ribbon-stripe mahogany plywood into cabinet box parts

No screws this time

I’m framing out the cabinet box with mahogany solid stock wetted out with US Composites epoxy followed by epoxy thickened with wood flour and cabosil

Next day, it’s all coming together

Next, I’ll varnish the cabinet box panel faces, epoxy the backing cleats to each panel, fit and finish the back panels, then this cabinet’s ready to install.

“Progress”

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Helm Station Mahogany IV

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the V-berth Closet

The V-berth closet is coming together pretty well. I just have to cut the 1/4″ ribbon striped mahogany plywood exterior panel so it will match the rest of the panels in this room. I’ve also been spending lots of time in the evening updating many early articles, since pictures I’d originally stored on Photobucket are no longer viewable. All it would show is an error picture saying you had to upgrade for 3rd party hosting or something. So I had to go back, figure out which pictures went where, download them from Photobucket, then upload to WordPress, and update  the URLs. Downloading from Photobucket was extremely tedious, since they’ve gone to an obnoxious popup and video ad model that crowds out its own navigation. The ‘download album’ feature doesn’t work. So I had to download each picture individually, and there were lots of them. gak

Anyway, that’s all fixed now and the V-berth is starting to look like I envisioned it years ago.

The V-berth concept

I made the concept drawings during the dark times of the paperwork SNAFU. It’s cool to see it becoming reality.

Pocket screws will secure the mahogany door opening parts

Glued and screwed in place

I wetted out all of the joints with epoxy, then mixed in some wood flour and cabosil and slathered it on all of the joints before assembling the parts. After wiping up the epoxy that squeezed out, I left it overnight to cure.

Looks pretty close to the concept!

I used the ugliest sheet of 1/2″ mahogany plywood in the stack for the forward closet panel, so next I need to cut the last ribbon-striped 1/4″ panel to cover up the ugly. That way, the outside of the closet will match the grain and color of the rest of the V-berth panels.

Marking and cutting the last ribbon-striped panel

Before installing the ugly closet panel, I had used it as a pattern for the pretty ribbon stripe.

Not a bad fit. Needs some trimming

A bit long on the bottom, too

Beveling the back edge to match the side panel should help the fit all around

I needed to knock more off the bottom than the top to match the curvy angles of the V-berth side wall. These are very complex pieces to make for a rookie like me. I take off a bit of the back edge, check the fit, mark where more material needs to come off, then take the panel down again, remove a bit more material, check the fit and repeat. You wouldn’t believe how much time it takes me to cut and fit just one panel!

BINGO! It just fits inside the rabbet in the closet door opening

Still a bit proud on the bottom

There’s a 5″ gap between the bottom of the ribbon-striped panel and the bed foundation. I plan to fill that gap with some pretty mahogany solid stock I’ve got, which will also cap all of the exposed plywood edges along the bed foundation top.

A little hand planing back to the pencil line does the job

NICE!

Friction fit holds the panel in place

I’ll have my painter spray ICA base coat clear on this panel after I’ve built out the rest of the V-berth cabinetry. Once it’s all cut and fitted, I’ll disassemble the whole thing, seal the edges and insulate the backsides, then I’ll bond the ribbon-striped panel to the closet panel with epoxy as I assemble the whole thing. In theory, I’ll have the V-berth done by the end of August.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: More V-berth Cabinetry