1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing Safety Rails

The salon headliner tracks are installed, but before the Whisper Wall panels go in I need to install two stainless handrails on the cabin top. The hardware that attaches the rail ends to the cabin is hidden up behind the headliner material, so they have to go in before the headliner.

Access to the aft-most safety rail end hardware hole is easy

When you exit the helm area to the side decks, Chris Craft put stainless rails on the cabin sides. I like having something to grab onto there, so I’m sticking with the original approach.

The original hole is a good place to start

The center rail support and forward rail end are more complicated

The fasteners for both the center rail support and the rail end go through the cabin top above the headliner. So I had to scrape away a lot of spray foam insulation to get down to bare fiberglass.

Houston, we have a problem

I very carefully drilled the hole for the center support from the outside…and put it directly behind a salon ceiling overhead beam. That’s gonna complicate the install…

Time to put in rail hardware

Looks good!

Nice!

Good looking rail!

Custom hardware for the hidden bolt hole

I cut three of these 1-1/8″ long 1/4-20 pieces of stainless all-thread for the starboard side center rail support. The idea was to slide it in from the outside, put a fat washer and locknut on between the fiberglass and ceiling beam, then attach the chromed bronze OE center support. But every single time I got to the boat, I’d lose the part! I finally got sick of it and just used my fake Fein multipurpose tool and modified the end of the beam so a bolt with a head on it would fit.

Modified overhead beam didn’t lose any structural bits

Starboard side center rail support is installed

The last piece

Last step

Once I’d wrapped up the install, two of those stubby pieces of all-thread came out of hiding over the course of two weeks. I swear I’d checked everywhere, but to no avail. Then, after I’d modified the ceiling beam and installed the center support with a bolt, I reached for a tool or part and–LO AND BEHOLD!!–there’s the little piece of all-thread sitting right there in broad daylight. I suspect it’s just the goddess of the seas messing with me. I’d rather have her hiding fasteners temporarily than sending big storms my way, as I believe she’s done in the past. 😉

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The Salon Headliner Install Begins!

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Spacers for the Safety Rail Bolts in the Salon

I mentioned a conundrum in my article about installing the safety rails: the original chromed bronze machine screws are all 1/2″ too short, and I hadn’t been able to find any fastener specialists that had 5/16-18 x 6″ stainless oval head, Phillips drive screws to replace them. Thanks to everyone who provided ideas for working around the problem, but one reader demonstrated exemplary internet search mojo and found a source that had them in stock! I’m not sure what’s so “environmentally friendly” about this boating supply store, but greenboatstuff.com had them and they’re on the way!

Next, I attached 1/2″ spacers to the overhead frames so the polished stainless machine screws and washers will be at the same height as the Whisper Wall headliner.

The washers and machine screws need to seat up against something at this height, same as the headliner

Three 5/16-18 machine screws go through here to secure the big chromed bronze mast base

Spacers are ready to be installed

I installed small 1/2″ plywood blocks where all of the bolts go through a frame

The screw is only held in place by friction

There’s also a light switch that has to get bumped out 1/2″

There’s also a light switch that has to get bumped out 1/2″

The mast wiring is already in place

That’s a wrap for the spacers

Next, I mixed up some epoxy to plasticize all of the screw holes

Injecting epoxy into each screw hole to prevent rot

This is the same approach I used on the mahogany toe rail stanchions, drilling the screw holes, then filling them with epoxy that soaks into the wood and drilling that out once it cures. That leaves behind a plastic hole instead of a wooden one. If these ever leak in the future, it won’t lead to rotten salon ceiling frames.

Cured epoxy fills the hole

Unfortunately, it doesn’t show up in the picture, but there are bubbles in the top of the cured epoxy from where it displaced air in the wood.

Next day, drill out the epoxy

That’s a wrap for plasticizing the screw holes

Now I just have to wait for the screws to arrive. Meanwhile, there’s more prep going on for the headliner.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Refurbishing 50-year Old Screens

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Dry Fitting the Starboard Mahogany Safety Rail

I discovered a twist problem when I tried to dry fit the port safety rail. The starboard rail went a lot faster, mostly because I’ve given up trying to use the original stanchion top screw holes. While getting the starboard side done, I came across some substantiating evidence about this boat’s very unloved past.

Same basic process as the port side

I attach the front of the West System-coated mahogany safety rail to the stainless bow rail, then support it with line tied to the tent rafters.

Roughly position the forward rail, then hang the aft one

Hello.

These two sticks haven’t been lined up since 2008 when the refit began, and the rails were pretty much bare mahogany back then that had been weathering for decades. With them nice and shiny, it’s clear that the forward and aft starboard safety rails were made from similar mahogany. Contrast that with the same joint on the port side:

Definitely not the same mahogany stock

And this off-colored aft safety rail is also the one that has twist to it. And the curve doesn’t quite match the hull curve. And then there are those four stanchions I mentioned in the last article…the ones that used 1″ tubing (.95 OD) rather than 3/4″ pipe (1.05″ OD).

Which of these things just doesn’t belong?

The pic above shows the threaded ends of some of the stanchion pipes that fit on the port aft safety rail, only one of which is the Chris Craft original 3/4″ pipe. Notice how the threads aren’t full length on the tubes? See how the threads aren’t full-depth, either? They’re sort of squared off rather than being sharp? That’s because they’re not pipe, they’re tube, and there’s not enough material on the .995″ OD of the tubing to make proper NPT threads.

My theory: These stanchions and that port safety rail aren’t the originals. I think this boat was damaged and repaired back in the 1970s, when the first owner still had the boat. I think the boneheads who used the wrong parts for the stanchions and made the twisted safety rail also did that lousy fiberglass repair under the port helm windshield that I first discovered when I was rebuilding the salon hatch opening. I also talked about it when we were making the bullet-proof cabin top. There was also the obviously shoddy repair on the port side that was visible from inside the salon when I removed the windshield, as well as the missing and loosely installed windshield frame attachment screws I discovered there. My earlier theory, from when I fiberglassed the dashboard and found still more damage on the port side, was that maybe the boat had been run hard through rough seas. But when I add the safety rail replacement on the same side to the equation, clearly, the boat had been damaged on the port side and the windshield frame had been removed to do the repair. Something big clobbered the heck out of the port side of the boat near the helm windshield, broke the fiberglass cabin top and dashboard, trashed the mahogany safety rail, and bent four stainless stanchions.

I wonder if they dropped one of the original engines when they were doing the repower to the twin turbo SuperSeamasters? 1,100lbs of Ford 427 and marine gear falling on the windshield area of the cabin top and rolling off onto the safety rail might explain it. Or a travel lift strike…but wouldn’t that have tended to hit the side rather than the cabin top? I guess the actual cause will remain a mystery unless somebody who knew the boat back then steps forward to volunteer info.

In any case, after locating the starboard safety rail front to back, I started drilling holes for the stanchion bases.

Drill, measure, mark, repeat

~41″ between stanchion centers

Stanchion center holes drilled front to back

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Drilling and Epoxying Stanchion Screw Holes

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Dry Fitting the Mahogany Safety Rails

With the bow safety rail dry fitted, next I need to dry fit the mahogany safety rails that go down both sides of the boat. While putting it all together, I found more clues about the rough history of this formerly abused boat. Those clues also add more challenges to getting the boat reassembled and ready to splash.

The stainless bow safety rail is dry fitted

Nice chromed bronze rail parts

Nylon spacers to protect the chrome

I sanded down 1/4″ nylon washers to make the spacers.

The spacers have a snug fit in the hole

Next, I started to install the chromed bronze tops for the stanchions. The stanchion bases were stolen back in 2014 when the bastard thieves burglarized the tent, but the stainless upright pipes were under the boat in a bucket. The stanchion pipe tops were, I believe, original.

Original stanchion top screw holes on the underside of the safety rail

Turns out the chromed bronze stanchion tops aren’t a uniform shape

I had to go through the stanchion tops one-by-one to find the specific one that fit each of the original holes. There are 20 stanchions, with two possible orientations for each stanchion top. I spent quite a bit of time figuring out which ones go where before deciding it really doesn’t matter. The toe rail is new, and the mahogany doesn’t care where I drill holes. It had also become clear that at least some of the stanchions had been relocated before.

Each stanchion top gets the set screw hole threads cleaned before attaching

I plan to just fill the original screw holes in the old mahogany with epoxy and wood flour. You can see two old bungs on the right of the pic above, so this rail has had holes filled before. They’re not perfect, so I’m not going to try to reuse screw holes that are very likely stripped out anyway.

Another thing worth noting in the pic above is the threads on the stainless pipe. The threads aren’t full depth, and they’re not the full length that 3/4″ NPT threads should be. Strange…

More strangeness…two stanchion pipes have no threads

The chromed bronze stanchion bases have 3/4″ NPT threads at the bottom, into which the pipes thread. The bases also have two set screws to lock the pipes in position. But two of the pipes have no threads at all, and they are shorter than the rest by the length of the threads. I have no idea why Chris Craft would have done this.

Pipe tops are inconsistent

Most of the pipe tops have been ground down, but not all. It turns out there are two different styles of stanchion tops on this boat, one is sized for 3/4″ pipe and has a 1.05 opening (3/4″ pipe has a 1.050″ OD). The other is sized for 1″ tubing and has a .996 opening. The pipe with the partial threads three pix up is actually 1″ tube (not pipe), with a .995 OD. The two stanchion tops in the pic above fit snugly over the 1.050″ OD pipe. All of the other pipes have had material crudely removed (with a grinder?) from the top to resize them down so they’ll fit in the tubing stanchion tops with the .996 ID. So, either Chris Craft was randomly pulling parts off the shelf to get this boat out the door, or something funky is going on.

Either way, I’ve got to keep moving forward. Time to cut some holes.

Start each hole with the centering drill in place to keep the saw from moving around

Remove the drill and complete sawing each hole

Chisel out the wood

In the pic above, you can just see the dimple caused by the tip of the centering drill.

Remove all of the wood to make a roughly flat bottom

Repeat the process three times, then lift the safety rail into place and secure it from the tent rafters.

The forward port safety rail is dry fitted

Attaching stanchion tops to the aft port safety rail

Getting ready to lift the aft port safety rail into place

1, 2, 3…lift!

The aft-most stanchion goes just in front of the helm door opening

It’s been nine long years since these safety rails have been on the boat, and they were in pretty rough condition in late 2007 when the refit began. For a minute there, I was real happy to see the old parts sitting where Chris Craft intended (albeit hanging from the tent rafters with string). But then, I attached the stanchion pipes and…more strangeness.

What the…?

The pipes are hanging at an angle free and clear of the toe rail…not even close to lining up.

Gad…the safety rail is twisted, especially in the center

You gotta be kidding!

What was never apparent when the mahogany rails were on the concrete floor in my garage, or on the side decks, or even in the spray booth when we sanded them before coating with West System epoxy and the 207 special hardener was that this one rail had pretty bad twist. It only became apparent when I attached it to the boat and started putting the stanchions on. Coupled with the stanchions that used tubing rather than pipe, and the mixed up stanchion tops, this just adds to the mystery of how this boat came to be this way. A twisted safety rail is one more headache I didn’t need. But it’s not a headache I have to deal with right now. Either way, the stanchion bases need to be dry fitted and all of the holes drilled before I can seal all of the exposed wood with epoxy and get ready for the final sprayed coats of DuPont MS1 clearcoat. Gotta stay focused on the priority of getting the spray painting done as soon as possible.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Dry Fitting the Starboard Mahogany Safety Rail

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Dry Fitting the Stainless Bow Safety Rail

I’m still waiting for the 1-1/2″ stainless tubing I’ll use for the raw water inlets, so I can’t weld the exhaust risers together just yet. There’s plenty of other stuff to do, though. My painter wants to get all of the exterior painting done in one go, since covering the whole boat with plastic is time consuming and expensive. We’ve got a couple of touch-ups to do from the boat explosion last year and a few other spots on the Awlgrip Matterhorn White, and we also have to put the last coats of DuPont MS1 on the mahogany toe rail. But before we can spray the toe rail, I want to dry fit the stanchions that hold up the mahogany safety rail and all of the other toe rail parts that just came back from the chrome shop.

It’s not easy getting a curvy piece of stainless tubing to hang properly

I’m sure Chris Craft assembled the entire bow safety rail and then had a few guys lift it into place. I don’t have a few guys, and assembling the pieces on the bow was not easy. I eventually ended up using the tent framing to suspend the tubing at what looked to be the right height.

The chromed bronze bow piece has to be centered over the centerline of the boat

OK…now so long as nothing moves…

But, you see, the problem is that everything moves. Tweak something just a bit on one side and it translates and magnifies through that one-inch noodle of stainless to the other end of the rail on the far side of the boat. After a frustrating hour or so, I finally got everything placed just so.

This, RIGHT HERE, is where the base needs to go

Take a deep breath and drill the hole

Then chisel out the bits

Can’t be too aggressive removing material…don’t want to split the rail

Little by little…

That’s the bottom of the hole…the depth of the base + ~1/8″

Niiiice

One screw hole lines up perfectly

But not on the other side

I remember that many of the safety rail screws were stripped out when I removed it, and I suspect that’s because the screw holes weren’t centered in the base holes. I may end up having to weld up at least one of the holes for each base then drill and tap new ones.

Repeat the process on the starboard side

Boom

I can’t wait to wash the boat and get rid of all that dust.

Next, the big support stanchions get fitted

Another big surprise was that some of the inside diameters of the rechromed bronze pieces were significantly smaller than when I sent them to the chrome shop. The plating really seems to have gravitated to one or the other opening in these pieces, which made it difficult to slide the pieces over the stainless tubing. One of the intermediate stanchion fittings was so tight, I couldn’t slide it over the tube at all. Once I polish these pieces of tubing, a tight fit will leave scratches and I don’t want that. A little work with a die grinder opened them back up and let me continue with the dry fit.

This one takes a bigger hole saw

I only leave the center drill bit in place when doing the initial drilling. Once the saw gets to 1/4″ depth or so, I pull the saw out, remove the drill, and continue cutting. That leaves the bottom of each hole flat, without the centering drill hole dropping deeper into the mahogany (and potentially into the aluminum deck).

Continue drilling without the centering drill bit

Hole drilled…

and chiseled…

…bit by bit…

And done!

It sucks that it took a whole day for me to make four holes, but that’s pretty much what it comes down to. On the other hand, I’ve removed stanchions before to refinish a rail and then replaced them in the same holes, but this is the first time I’ve positioned a safety rail and drilled the holes. Getting it just right is important because the position of this bow rail decides the positioning of the far end of the mahogany safety rails, where the openings have to roughly match the helm door openings, which aren’t in the original locations. I think I nailed it.

Ultimately, I plan to cut all of the stanchion base holes and drill slightly oversized holes for the fasteners (but without drilling through the aluminum deck), then saturate the holes with epoxy so if any water ends up in the bottom of the stanchion base it won’t be able to soak into the mahogany and give rot a chance to start. Once the epoxy is cured, I’ll clean up the fastener holes with a proper-sized drill, tap the aluminum for the fasteners, and do the final assembly with Tefgel on the stainless fasteners and Sikaflex 291LOT sealant.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Dry Fitting the Mahogany Safety Rails