1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Mud Dauber Screens

Over the course of this refit (thus far), I’ve probably removed a 5-gallon bucketful of mud dauber wasp nests from the boat. The worst was back when we first started the refit, since the boat had been stored on land and ignored since the mid-1980s. But even in the tent, wildlife would find a way inside and I’d occasionally find more mud nests. I realize they’re beneficial insects, but I really want to exclude them from the boat. Their main point of entry now is the main engine air intake gills on the sides of the hull. So I needed a solution that would exclude the wasps but not be too restrictive on airflow.

A mud dauber nest we found when dejunking the boat in December 2007

Engine air intake gills

304 stainless 8 x 8 mesh screen with .017″ diameter wire supplied by darbywiremesh.com

This screen has eight wires per inch, so the gaps are just under 1/8″, which is small enough that mud daubers can’t get through. And the wire is fine enough that it shouldn’t substantially reduce airflow.

The starboard intake gills from inside the salon

Measure twice, cut once

I initially tried using tin snips to cut the mesh, but they weren’t sharp enough. So I pulled out my trusty Wiss #1225 shears that had proven themselves over and over again, even on the kevlar we used for the bullet-proof cabin top. They cut through the stainless wire like butter, and it was a much cleaner cut than when Darby Wire Mesh cut the piece from a roll.

Cut to size and ready to install

I had some leftover Bostik 70-08A from The Season of Do-Overs…Aft Deck Glass 2.0

The stuff is super tenacious, and I think it’ll do fine holding this screen in place next to the gills.

Press the screen up against the gills and hold in place while the caulk cures

This Bostik product has a “1-hour drive-away” time for vehicle windshields. After 45 minutes it had set up enough to remove the sticks.

While the Bostik was setting up, I got busy on the next screen

This is working out well

Nice! Time to button up the starboard engine air intake

Starboard side is done

I repeated the process on the port side. The engine air intakes are now mud dauber-proof.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Salon Cabinet Install

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Wrapping Up the Aft Stateroom Headliner Installation

All but one aft stateroom headliner panel has been installed, and then I got all of the LEDs and the OEM light fixture installed. There’s just one more Whisper Wall panel to install in the ceiling, and then I can do some finishing touches to wrap it up.

The last Whisper Wall panel is almost done

The installer spritzes the panel with water, then uses tools that look like thick, rounded putty knives to push the fabric home into the track on one side. Next, he pulls it to the far side and pushes it home in that track before doing the other two sides. Then he comes back with a razor and trims the material that’s hanging free. I like this approach a lot better than the original headliner, with a solid line of staples all the way around that has to be covered with trim.

Trimming the last bit of headliner

Boom. Done.

I got busy wrapping up the hatch

Staples hold the fabric tight, then trim the excess

The installer knew there was a friction fit between the mahogany ring and the new varnished veneer. But for some reason he pulled the fabric up into the hatch tube and put a line of staples into the new veneer to hold it in place. So I had to pull all the staples before trimming the fabric.

That’s the idea

That looks pretty awesome

Reconditioned screen is ready to install

I replaced the screen and spline. When I had it all apart, I cleaned up the aluminum extrusions and applied metal wax to protect it.

You can tell where the screen tracks go by the corrosion

The V-berth hatch leaked but the aft one didn’t. White aluminum oxide powder is heaviest on four of the eight tracks, so those are for the V-berth.

It’s obvious, right?

Test fitting two screen tracks

That looks about right

Houston, we have a problem

The original metal trim ring was ~1/16″ thick. The mahogany ring is ~1/8″ heavy, so the screen frame is too high to smoothly pass it. I need to lower the tracks 1/8″ or so.

The solution: thin mahogany spacer strips with eight coats of varnish

Drill pilot holes in the mahogany strip with a Vix #3 to precisely center them

That works…and looks good, too

Getting closer

That’s better

Perfect!

All tracks installed

I thought I should show what the OEM hatch trim piece looked like. I’m sure the aluminum was nice when it was new, but even if it was shiny I think the mahogany looks a lot better.

And with that, the aft stateroom headliner installation is a wrap.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Wrapping Up the V-berth Headliner Installation

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Salon Entryway Sliding Screen Tracks

I got the new board made for the salon entryway, and it’s off to the paint shop to be coated with ICA base coat clear. One challenge I’ve been trying to figure out for the last…oh…maybe eight years or so, is what to do about the retractable screen tracks that fit in the salon entryway boards. The original tracks broke on removal back in 2008. Every once in a while, I go online and try to find replacements, but I’ve come up dry every time. I finally came up with an option that I thought would work. It ended up being a bit more complicated than I thought.

Knape & Vogt P2417TAN48 Plastic Sliding Door Track looks about right

I bought these tracks years ago for the 1/4″ cabinet slider doors in the heads. But I have two packs…plenty for the salon entryway.

The track fits in the slot of the original (cracked) board

It’s a bit too tall, though.

Bigger problem: the screen frame is 5/16″, not 1/4″

That’ll teach me to eyeball a dimension from memory instead of putting a tape measure on the actual part. But the thing is, no matter where I looked online, I couldn’t find a 5/16″ double track. So I started staring at the Knape & Vogt track and noticed there’s a lot of material to work with. If I can machine off the fat part that runs along the tip of the center section and maybe remove some material from either side…maybe I can make them work with my screen tracks.

First try with my table saw seemed promising…at first

Unfortunately, there’s a gap between my table saw blade and the table. As the track passes over the blade, there’s nothing supporting it on the outside edge. And the plastic is somewhat flexible…so it flexes….which is bad.

OK…that’s not going to work.

Things were going great until the track got about halfway cut, then it moved just a bit aaaaand there went the edge of the track.

Next I tried whittling it with a razor knife

That kind of worked, but the surface the screen frame needs to ride on was very inconsistent. What I need is something that’ll hold this flimsy track in position while it passes a cutting tool. Oh, and the tracks are 48″ long.

I’m gonna make a jig

Joint the 2×4 on my MiniMax FS35

That’s pretty

Next, I cut a slot in the 2×4

Nice fit!

The track slides smoothly through the jig, with no side-to-side slop.

A little work with a hole saw and jigsaw, and the jig is ready

I converted my ShopSmith to router mode, clamped the jig to the table and up tight to the fence. Time to do a test run.

It’s looking good!

The center track machined pretty well…the fat part at the top is gone

The near side of the track in the above picture is the one that got destroyed on the tablesaw. It works much better using the jig and router.

Finish machining the rest of the track to test the approach

I removed ~1/32″ of material from both sides of each track lane

It works!

Now that I know how to modify the tracks, I need to bring another set to the boat (having destroyed this one during R&D) and machine them. If you look at the aluminum screen frame in the above pic, you’ll see it could use some attention, too. I also need to replace the screens. While I’m at it, I’ll make the screens for the V-berth and aft stateroom hatches pretty, too.

Oh, and in other news, I took some time off the project in 2017 to cut up some trees I had taken down. I paid to have the stumps ground, but the tree company left a big chunk of stump in the ground, and it made a mound that I couldn’t level. I finally got that sucker out of the ground last week. It was right at the limit of what my Kubota BX23 can lift, but we got ‘er done.

Making firewood

That’s a lot of stump

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Salon Entryway Sliding Screen Tracks II