1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Engine Room Vent Fan

OK, so this isn’t one of the mandatory priority, gotta-do so I can splash the boat things, but it IS one of the things that kept getting in my way AND it turned out really nicely.

Plus…there’s another Easter egg. And I do love my Easter eggs. Any chance to re-purpose OEM or cool, old parts from the boat as part of this refit just makes me happy for some reason. Let the captain who is without quirks throw the first stone…

That is one busted up 1969 era OEM Jabsco engine room vent fan

The thing is, this boat had pretty low hours on it, and it was on the hard and unloved from ~1985 to 2007, when I bought it for one crisp US dollar bill (worst investment ever, btw). So the fan motor was in great shape. You can see that the mounting flange was a mess, but that’s because Chris Craft provided zero direct support for the motor. The plastic flange was not only holding the fan outlet to the thru-hull outlet, it was also supporting all that motor weight that was suspended several inches outboard. Eventually, the flange just broke off.

This is kind of par for the course for Chris Craft vent hoses

There are many good things to be said about 1960s-era America…Chris Craft using dryer hose for vent lines is not one of them.

OK, so that’s what it looked like when we were doing demolition on the boat ages ago. Fast forward to much more recently, and things are looking much better.

Industrial-grade vent hose should hold up better than dryer hose

Next, I broke out the Marine-Tex miracle epoxy repair kit and rebuilt the flange.

ShopSmith 12″ disk sander helps true the repaired flange

Repair area is thicker than OEM

Ready for some rattle can paint

The rebuilt fan and soon-to-be support upgrade

Now…for the Easter Egg.

Remember these???

Longtime readers will recall that this boat was outfitted in the early 1970s with twin turbo and intercooled Super SeaMaster engines–534ci Ford Super Duty blocks that had perhaps the most gorgeous, hot-rod marinization ever done by anybody anywhere. But it was the wild early days of turbocharging, and SeaMaster used oil-cooled (no waterjacket!) turbos drawing gas-air mix from a single carburetor over each gear, then pushing that gas-fuel mix under turbo pressure and heat into the raw water-cooled intercooler, which was mounted where the carburetor would normally go on a V-8 engine. If you haven’t read that linked article in a while, check it out and be amazed at the raw, industrial beauty of those engines.

Needless to say, keeping all 12 hose clamps on the pressurized side of those turbos torqued to spec was a life-or-death maintenance item. If a clamp broke or was loose, you’d potentially have fuel vapor and air under pressure blowing past the clamps, filling the ER of a metal boat with massive volumes of explosive fumes…potentially the world’s biggest hand grenade.

Anyway, as you can imagine, the SuperSeamaster turbo clamps were of the highest quality. Plus, the custom labels were kinda cool. You don’t see those everyday. So I kept them around thinking they might come in handy someday.

Well…today was that day. It was the perfect opportunity to re-purpose one of those fine hose clamps as a motor support for the ER fan.

Stainless strap cut to size, with nitrile rubber to isolate vibration

Bench vise brake puts a nice hook in the stainless strap

Perfect!

The ‘hook’ will grab the hose clamp and keep it from sliding off when the fan is running.

Need a bend here to bring the far end of the strap toward the overhead where it will attach

Kinda like that

This is a great Easter egg

Imagine the next guy who ends up with this boat, long after the coming zombie apocalypse. He’s going to see this clamp and will be totally stumped as to why turbo clamps are so mission critical on an ER fan…because the zombie apocalypse will take out the internet, so this photo-blog will be lost to history.

This is the greatest Roamer refit Easter egg yet!

Next up: nitrile rubber flange gasket

The flange isn’t perfectly flat. I stopped sanding with the ShopSmith sander when it started removing OEM flange material. I don’t want that to get any thinner, even with the new stainless turbo clamp strap support system. So instead, I’ll use a gasket made of nitrile and silicone gasket-maker to create a flat sealing surface for the flange.

Artisan flange gasket

Flange-to-gasket joint loaded up with silicone gasket maker

Chunk of 1/4″ aluminum plate ensures the gasket will be flat

Next day, at the boat, the ER fan goes in the starboard salon aft cabinet

New ER vent hose is installed in the OEM vent hose hole in the floor

This is going to work great!

Measure twice…

Literally…measure twice or maybe even three times, because you can only bend the strap so many times and have it look pretty

After one more trip through the vise brake, the strap and everything else are done

Final connections…ready to test

I pulled the ER fan switch at the helm and…for the first time in decades the fan started humming away…quietly, because it’s isolated by nitrile rather than being firmly bolted to the hull. Success! On to the next.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Fuel Filters

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Transom Threshold Moldings

The aft deck is coming along very nicely, albeit slowly.

I’ve also been busy working on our 1968 Chris Craft Commander 42, getting it ready to put on the market as part of the big transition from a two-Chris Craft family to just one. One of the big success stories there was to bypass the OEM starboard engine oil cooler, which was a big cast iron thing that bolted up to the oil pan, and install an aftermarket one. The OEM one was restricting water flow and, I suspect, not doing a very good job actually cooling the oil. The aftermarket one actually came on the Super SeaMaster twin turbo and intercooled 534ci monsters that were in this Roamer when we got it. With the new cooler installed, the difference in water flow out the exhaust and temperature stability even when running on plane is pretty amazing.

Another thing I’ve been thinking about since we got the Commander, and finally started working on recently, was bringing the old Kohler 6.5kv genset back to life. It didn’t run when we bought the boat, and by the looks of things it hadn’t run in decades–the hour meter only shows 290 on the clock. One of the two previous owners had removed the carburetor, linkage, water pump drive belt and pulleys, and other bits, but none of those parts came with the boat. I’ve been slowly accumulating the parts necessary to put it back together, though not exactly to original condition. The carburetor, for example, is a side draft unit from a later model Kohler; I believe the original was an up-draft version.

But I also wanted to convert it from open, raw water cooling to a closed cooling system with a heat exchanger and antifreeze. I understand open cooling systems on trailer boats, where they get drained at the end of the day once they’re back on the trailer. But I can’t fathom why anybody would want that in a boat that stays in the water all the time, especially if it’s salt or brackish. Anyway, I’m just waiting on a few small parts, then I’ll be ready to fire it up.

Back to the Roamer. While I was working on the transom mahogany panels, I also made the moldings for the transom threshold/step-through.

The transom step-through threshold could look better

Note that, in the picture above, the wood and white painted aluminum aren’t the same height. The wood sits below or to the side of the painted, 3/16″ thick aluminum. So to make a pretty molding that covers that joint/step, the underside of  the molding will have to have a 3/16″ step to it as well. Keep that in mind as you read the rest.

Repurposing 50-year old OEM mahogany

I’m going to use this mahogany board that was originally one of the aft stateroom facia panels that Chris Craft painted white. I think my full-width, varnished mahogany ones look a lot better than the white originals did. I ran this one through the Dewalt thickness planer a few times to get rid of the white paint, but the serial number still remained.

Let the cutting begin!

Good initial fit

Route the ends to match the fillets on the transom

Nice!

Next, I marked off the curve of the plywood panel and cut off the excess.

ShopSmith bandsaw trims the curved edge to match the mahogany plywood

Oops

I had used my little Bosch router to remove excess material from the bottom side of this molding, where it will overlap the 3/16″ aluminum threshold. The next step was to round the top edge of the molding. But there was too little material left below for the guide roller to ride on. When the roller slipped past the edge (two inches from being finished!!!) the little Bosch very quickly turned this complex, nearly finished mahogany molding into scrap.

Deep breath…

Take-home lesson: leave the board thick while rounding an edge with a router bit that relies on a bearing guide, then remove the material from the underside.

So I made another molding…

Nice!

Great fit!

Bottom molding is done

Starboard molding is rough fitted

Little curved cuts on the bottom match the bottom molding

Port side molding is last

Nice!

Since these moldings are in a ‘rough service’ area, I decided to treat them as replaceable maintenance items. So instead of epoxying them permanently in place, I’ll use traditional screws, bungs, and caulk.

These are very complex pieces of mahogany

Done!

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Varnishing and Installing More Aft Deck Mahogany

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Aft Stateroom Entryway Door Jamb

I’d like for my top priority to be splashing the boat and getting the bottom wet. This project would finish a lot faster if it was closer to my home port. But my Boatamalan* painter lives in Annapolis, and until his job is completely done I need to keep it closer to him. I decided years ago to use ICA catalyzed polyurethane varnish for the interior because that’s what they used at the Boatamalan’s former day job, Weaver Boatworks. I figure if it’s good enough for multi-million dollar sportfishermen toys for the top 1%, it’s good enough for a weekend warrior boat nog** like me.

* Boatamalan: portmanteau indicating highly skilled boat workers of Central American origin. They’re actually from Honduras, but Boatamalan rolls off the tongue better. 🙂

** Boat nog: A local term I picked up at a southern Maryland boatyard meaning “guy who spends every weekend working on a hopeless boat that’ll never see the water again.”

Thing is, ICA is a base coat/top coat system, and the top coat is a spray-only product. You can roll and tip it, but word has it the results are disastrous. When sprayed though….absolutely gorgeous.

So…the boat has to stay in the current marina until the ICA top coat I’ve already purchased has been sprayed. But before the Boatamalan can spray it, the headliner has to be installed. It seems backward, but as I understand it the topcoat is applied last to avoid it getting scratched when the headliner is installed. The V-berth headliner installation is started and looking great, and a few of the Whisper Wall headliner panels have been installed in the aft stateroom, too. But before the rest of the headliner can be installed in the aft stateroom, the aft stateroom head slider door box has to be finished. The bigger job, though, is squaring away the aft stateroom entryway.

Right side door jamb is a hot mess

We removed that door jamb part way back when we were doing demolition in December 2007. It’s been sitting in a pile of parts in my garage since then because I knew I’d need it as a pattern some day.

Man…was I an idiot. lol

A previous owner was very concerned with security

That cutout was for padlock hardware. Like…barn door padlock hardware. Galvanized steel. Very ‘work boat’ feel to it.

A bigger hot mess

Mr. Good-but-Slow strikes again!

Mr. Good-but-Slow was a guy who had very good customer reviews, but pretty much everything he did on my boat was a disaster. I had to replace the bulkhead on this side because it rotted out from water coming in through the teak deck-to-aluminum deck joint. There’s a major mahogany beam overhead here that had rotted out and then split from taking the load that the rotted out plywood bulkhead was no longer holding in place. Mr. Good-but-Slow did an OK job scarfing in a new section of beam, but he didn’t jack it up to the right height (~1/8″) before epoxying it in place. When I cut the bulkhead, I used the original as a pattern. When I installed it, I jacked the beam up to the OEM height, epoxied all of the joint surfaces, slid the bulkhead home and screwed it all in place. But because Mr. Good-but-Slow had epoxy-locked the beam in place in the ‘rotted bulkhead’ position, when I put the bulkhead in it was too tall. I didn’t notice because I was using a hydraulic jack to put the beam in place and everything seemed to fit just fine.

Fast forward to 2019 and I’m working on the aft stateroom doorjamb and that’s when I realized the bulkhead panel had been installed in compression. The panel, which should be flat, is instead curved. This is a problem because the door, the jamb, and everything else here will not be curved.

It’s always something…

So, I need to make a straight door jamb that fits a slightly curved bulkhead. No problem.

That’s ugly

Chris Craft and their freakin’ white painted mahogany

The least-horrible view

8/4 mahogany scrap left over from the toe rail

There’s always that question of whether or not to keep scraps. It turned out this one was a good keeper.

One pass down the table saw rough-cuts the height

I see potential here

Dewalt miter saw lops off the sharp ends

This is working out well so far

Run the lumber over my MiniMax 35 jointer back at the house

After jointing all four sides, I rounded the face edges with a router

Back at the boat, with each additional cut I get more nervous

It’s a funny thing: the first cut or two on a piece of nice lumber aren’t stressful at all. But as each piece of wood gets closer to its final form, I get more and more nervous about the next cut. I’ve spent a full day before machining a single piece of wood. On that last cut, if you blow it, that’s a whole day’s work gone. So far, things are going well.

First rabbet cut

Second rabbet cut

3rd rabbet cut

That’s not bad!

This is terrifying

Not bad!

Shopsmith bandsaw is a great tool

One final cut and the piece is rough cut

Next, I used a router to cut the curve in the outer rabbet to fit the curve in the bulkhead panel. That won’t be visible because the bulkhead is behind the salon entry stairs. The door jamb rabbet on the other side is straight, so it’ll align nicely with the lower door jamb. This was irritating, but overall it didn’t add much time to making the part. Where things get more time consuming is the next step.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Aft Stateroom Entryway Mahogany Panels

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The Last Galley Pantry Panels

It warmed up for a few days, but over the weekend temps once again crashed below freezing. It’s snowing outside now and the Potomac River is still frozen over. But I did manage to get the last galley pantry panels cut before my kerosene heater ran out of fuel over the weekend. Gotta remember to bring a jerry can of kero next weekend!

Galley pantry #1

Pantry #2, with a big step down to the right, where pantry #3 needs to go

First, I built up the floor

Next I installed 1″ x 1″ mahogany cleats

The straight edge shows me where the plywood base panel should stick out to, so it aligns with all of the others.

Next, I put in the upright cleats that the back panel will attach to

It might seem easy, screwing sticks to plywood panels. But the thing is, nothing is square here…so nothing is easy. If I just made square or rectangular box cabinets, like you’d see in a house, it would be easy. I could even buy them pre-made at a big box retailer. BUT, I’d lose relatively huge amounts of storage space that the missus tells me is essential. To maximize storage, I’m trying to keep the back panels as close to the hull as possible. The hull is curved here, so the cabinet depth varies from side-to-side and top-to-bottom. The cleats need to be installed just so AND they have to be cut on a bevel, otherwise the plywood panels won’t lie flat on them. I’m sure it’d be easy for a pro, but you’d be surprised how long it takes for a weekend woodworker like me to get eight cleats attached in the right spots.

Bottom panel fits well

That one little tiny panel took me 30 minutes to cut and fit.

45 minutes later, the back panel fits pretty good

Getting the top panel cleats installed took another hour

Though you normally wouldn’t use a level on a boat that’s floating, I can use a level for cabinetmaking because I check the level of the whole boat about once a year. Once the floors are level, everything built on the floors can be checked for level, too.

Upper cleats are dry fitted

In the pic above, it looks like the cleats are part of an M.C. Escher print. But, in fact, the bottom surfaces of the sticks are all on the same plane.

30 minutes later, the upper panel is close to fitting

After a few more slices, it fits pretty good!

I just need to bevel the back edge a bit to close that joint

I’ve used my Shopsmith jointer before to bevel plywood panels

Unfortunately, the HHS jointer blades Shopsmith requires don’t hold up when jointing plywood edges

The jointer blades held up well enough to finish the panel. And since that was the last of the pantry panels to fit, the next step was to disassemble the whole thing and take the panels in for refinishing someplace warm.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The Flagship Marine Air Conditioners Have Arrived

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: V-berth Cabinetry Corner Molding

The V-berth is coming along pretty well. I’ve got almost all of the mahogany panels cut and fitted, the closet is done, and so is the bed foundation. I’ve also got all of the panels for the “desk-like structure” cut and fitted, so next I need to make a complex molding for the corner where several panels join together in all three axes and at different angles. I don’t do this for a living, and it’s been hot as can be this summer (and worse in the tent), so it was very challenging making this piece.

The “desk-like structure”

As time goes on, this “desk-like structure” is looking more and more like an air conditioner cabinet. I need to make a molding that joins the two vertically oriented panels with the horizontal one.

The basic molding shape

I find it’s much better on working drawings to use the angles that correspond to the saw gauge than to use the actual geometric angles. On all of my saws, 90° is 0°, so the 20° noted in the drawing would be 70° in conventional geometry.

Truing up a mahogany stick

Cutting a square groove

Two passes through the saw

Four passes…

Five passes and done

Nice fit for 13mm mahogany plywood

Next, I need to route a slot at an angle…never done that before

Turns out my little Bosch router has a tilt attachment

Looks like this will work

One full pass…looking good

Full depth pass…that looks good, too!

After one more pass at full depth, the second slot was done

That’s looking as I imagined

Next, I marked the molding for the next slot that the horizontal panel will fit into.

Just like that…

Nice!

Next, I removed some material with my band saw

That ought to do it

I’m using the bandsaw because this cut won’t go all the way to the far end of the molding, and the cut needs to be straight through the material. The molding needs to be full-size at the bottom, from the horizontal panel to the floor. But there’s no  need to have the extra material up higher.

Rough cuts done

3/4″ and 3/8″ round router bits will smooth off the corners

Getting closer

Getting better

Mini drum sander on a rotary tool helps clean up the rounded corners

Sanded with 120 grit…looking OK!

Sweet!

Done!

See the sweat stain thumb print in the middle of the molding? Yeah…it’s that hot in the tent. It feels cool when I go outside on 90°F days.

While making the molding, I noticed that as I finished each step I got more and more nervous about making subsequent cuts. Mahogany isn’t cheap, but if I screw up on the first couple cuts I can just cuss myself out and pull another stick from the stack. After getting the basic shape done, it’s not just a stick any more! Having spent the better part of six hours working on it, I was being very, very careful on the last operation drum sanding with my Harbor Freight rotary tool. That thing removes material fast! But in the end, I think it turned out pretty good!

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Marine Air Conditioners

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Making Solid Mahogany Corners for the V-berth Cabinets

It’s July 4, 2017, and in America that means we’ll be celebrating Brexit 1776, also known as Independence day. Our son came down for the holiday and introduced us to his charming fiance, so this will be a very memorable 4th of July. We’ll take our 1968 Chris Craft Commander 42 up to Three Sisters in Washington, DC, where the Potomac runs clean and clear. We’ll go swimming, grill up some of the missus’ homemade sausages, then head back to the dock to watch the fireworks show tonight. It’ll be hot and steamy here in the nation’s capital, but not nearly as hot or steamy as it is inside Tent Model XXX, where I’m making decent progress on the V-berth joinery.

The V-berth plan

The V-berth reality

There will be a hanging locker (closet) above the small cabinet to the right. I need to make the corners for the closet out of solid mahogany, then I’ll glue and screw mahogany plywood to those corners using the same approach as I did on the aft stateroom walls.

The mahogany stick across the middle will be one corner

I’ve got a lot of 8/4 (~2″) thick mahogany planks stacked under the boat and also a bunch of leftover bits and pieces from the new toe rail. The leftover bits are odd shapes because the toe rail is curved to some degree all along its length. I thought I’d end up using the stick in the pic above as bung fodder, but it turns out to be just the right size to become one of the V-berth corner pieces.

One pass down the table saw removes the curve

A 6′ board will become a couple of Mahogany corner pieces

I use my track saw to true the edges

One end touches the track

You can see the banana in the board.

It’s got ~3/16″ banana in the middle

And good contact with the track at the other end

After truing the boards with the track saw, I ran them through my new Dewalt surface planer.

New planer and table

Those cleaned up pretty nicely!

I think these corners are going to be pretty.

With the lumber dimensioned, next I started shaping it into corners.

First passes at 30°

First time using Shopsmith jointer

I’ve had this jointer attachment for years but never used it. I was considering cutting the cabinet door rabbets with my table saw or maybe a router, but it turns out the Shopsmith jointer cuts them pretty well.

Set the cut depth at 1/8″

1st pass

Bump it up to 1/4″

2nd pass

Maximum depth

3rd and final pass

Repeat the process for both corners

Both of the cabinet corners are roughed out now. The next step will be to use a belt sander to smooth off the 30° and 60° curves. But first, we’re going to goof around at Three Sisters and enjoy America’s Independence Day celebration. I hope y’all have a great one, too!

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The V-berth Bed Foundation Frames

 

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Making V-berth Head Moldings

The scorching hot summer of 2016 is gradually coming to an end. But it seems as if every break in the heat happens in mid-week. By the weekend, it’s back up way above the average for this time of year. On the upside, it’s been good to get out of the tent and enjoy my other Chris Craft. On the downside, the V-berth head was supposed to be done by May 1…I’ve fallen far off schedule. But in between the heat and the boating, I did manage to finally get the moldings for the head made.

1968 Chris Craft Commander 42 anchored at Three Sisters on the upper Potomac river

The water is very nice up at Three Sisters. In the pic above, that’s the Washington Monument off in the distance on 9/11/16. Meanwhile, back in the tent…

I need to make mahogany moldings for the door and cabinet openings

First, round a corner with the router

Next, cut a rabbet with the table saw

Next, cut the molding off from the board and repeat

And repeat…

And repeat

And keep repeating until there’s no more stock to hold onto

Run the last one through the Shopsmith bandsaw, which has a thinner kerf than the table saw

Cabinet opening moldings are done

Convert the Shopsmith into a shaper for the door moldings

Custom in-feed & out-feed tables are ready for action

That turned out pretty slick!

Flip the board, and do it again

Cut the rabbet on my $40 new-to-me Craftsman table saw

One pass to cut the rabbet, and another to rip off the molding

Door moldings are done and ready for sanding and finishing

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Sanding and Finishing the V-berth Head Moldings

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Expanding the Woodworking Shop

It’s been so brutally hot and humid that I’ve pretty much taken the month off from the project. The Labor Day weekend was nice — not too hot and surprisingly low humidity — so we took our other boat out for the weekend. Then the heat and humidity came back with a vengeance. We’re almost halfway through September, and it’ll be in the high 90s and dripping wet this weekend. It looks like this will be the last miserable weekend of the year though, so I hope to get back into it starting next week. Frankly, it’s been kind of nice taking the time off. I was starting to get burned out.

That said, I did get the wood shop set up to process moldings faster.

New-to-me Craftsman contractor’s table saw

The new saw was a craigslist find. It had been sitting in a guy’s shed for 10 years or so. He bought it from the original owner, who didn’t use it very much, but the second owner never fully assembled it. He’d replaced the belt, but never aligned the pulley properly. Almost all of the pieces were there, but it was missing some of the anti-kickback brackets. There was also quite a bit of surface rust on the table. Oddly enough, the seller even had the owner’s manual, which includes all of the assembly and adjustment instructions. I ended up paying $40 for it…what a score!

I assembled it, replaced the blade, adjusted the belt, and made a sort of outfeed extension with a board so I can cut the long pieces of molding I need for the V-berth head door. I also need to make infeed and outfeed extensions for my Shopsmith, which I’ll use as a shaper/router.

The board that will become the infeed extension for my Shopsmith

Shopsmith in router configuration to cut a rabbet

The Shopsmith is a great machine, but one problem I’ve been having with it is that unlike typical table saws, where the blade is adjustable for height and angled cuts, on the Shopsmith the table is what’s adjustable. For small projects that’s fine, but for some of these moldings I need to make between four and eight passes. Since the moldings are long and the Shopsmith table is fairly small, I need infeed and outfeed extensions to ensure a consistent height along the entire length. It’s easy enough to change the height of the table, but re-setting the boards I’ve used as infeed and outfeed extensions takes 10~15 minutes each time. Getting them to line up with the table and be level all the way from end to end is a pain. Going back and forth from the table saw configuration to router/shaper takes additional time. This was the main driver in my decision to start looking for a conventional table saw. For routing and shaping, I’ll set the Shopsmith up once and run all the pieces of molding through. That $40 investment in the saw, plus a day spent assembling, cleaning, and adjusting it will be well worth it.

1/4″ rabbet  for an aluminum bracket

Aluminum angle will latch onto the Shopsmith table

I cut the rabbet for the full depth of the aluminum angle on both the infeed and outfeed extension, but then realized it would be better if the aluminum angle for the outfeed extension hooked onto the track for the saw fence. That’ll make it much easier to align the extensions when I change the table height.

An idea that didn’t work out well

Having the aluminum slide in the table saw fence track makes a much better connection than trying to clamp it to the table horizontally. I was going to TIG weld the aluminum bar to the angle for a nice fit. But the aluminum angle isn’t long enough to have a rigid connection to the board with the bar welded to it. There’s only a 1/2″ or so leftover for the board. So instead I used the same basic idea but without the additional bar.

Space the angle just far enough away from the board, then screw it all together

With the outfeed extension made, it was a breeze to make the infeed one.

Route out holes on the underside for clamps

Drill and countersink holes, and then screw it all together

Et voila!

I use scrap 2x4s and clamps to hold the far end of the infeed and outfeed extensions to match the height of the table. The scaffolding framing provides plenty of places to clamp the crossbar supports. With this setup, it takes about 5 minutes to set the table for different routing/shaping operations. And I can run 8′ or longer pieces of lumber through without any trouble at all. Now I’m ready to make moldings. If only it wasn’t so danged hot and sticky this weekend!

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Making V-berth Head Moldings

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Making Spacers for the Swim Platform

In 2014, I refinished the original teak swim platform then let it sit in my shop at home while I recovered from the bastard thieves who stole all of the parts, tools, and materials from the tent that year. Installing the platform got delayed again in 2015 when the boat next to mine exploded and damaged my paint and and the tent. But if I’m going to splash in 2016, I’ve got to get the platform installed since many of the bolts that attach it to the boat are below the waterline.

Original salon hatch frames, saved for re-purposing

I started out by cutting the old mahogany salon hatch frames into useful lengths, getting rid of all of the splits, cracks and other bad parts.

Right side of the mahogany frame shows a hint of rot…cutting off another  1/2″ should do

Next, rip each board with my Eurekazone track saw

Looking good…ready for the bandsaw

Shopsmith bandsaw easily handles the width when truing the board face

Tapered pine pattern will guide the cut, transferring the taper to the mahogany

Starting the taper cut

The board is 3″ wide, and I don’t want the blade to twist when I push the wood through. So I’m using a 1/2″ 3tpi blade.

Second pass

First spacer done

Once I worked out the steps, the rest went pretty fast

Next, drill the bolt holes slightly oversized for 3/8″ bolts

It’s really unfortunate Chris Craft didn’t manufacture the swim platform brackets to fit the boat. The transom is very close to perpendicular to the waterline, so all they had to do was make the top of the brackets (where the platform attaches) 90° to the upright mounting point. Instead, they made them 82°, which is why I need the tapered spacers.

Encapsulate in epoxy, then fiberglass

I fully saturated the mahogany with epoxy, including the inside of the bolt holes, then laid on a layer of medium weight fiberglass. When the epoxy started getting tacky, I hot coated it with homemade underwater fairing compound.

Next day, touch up the fairing compound

Redrill pilot holes

Drill final holes with a 3/8″ bit, then chamfer the hole edge

The spacers are mahogany, but they’re completely encapsulated in plastic, even inside the bolt holes. With no breaks in the epoxy, once I get a barrier coat on them water won’t be able to attack the wood inside. But before I can apply barrier coat, I need to get a gallon kit of Devoe Bar-Rust 235. The local supplier stopped carrying it, and I’ve been having trouble finding a distributor in the area. So I’ll put the swim platform on hold and get to work on something else.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Helm Windshield is Finally Done

1969 Chris Craft Roamer Refit: Installing the Port Engine II

After setting up the gantry, cutting off the original engine beds, and sending the original Cummins engine mounts off for modification, I’m ready to finish the port engine installation. It’s going a lot quicker than the starboard engine installation…lots of lessons learned there.

Before: inner rear engine mount needed machining

Rear engine mount with slot relocated to fit the Roamer

Rear engine bed parts made from 3/8″ thick aluminum angle

My Shopsmith Mark V table saw with the band saw and 12″ disk sander attachments made quick work of manufacturing the engine beds. It’s really nice to be able to use woodworking tools when machining aluminum, and the Shopsmith packs a lot of different tools into a small footprint.

Aluminum engine bed bonded with West System epoxy thickened with aluminum powder and cabosil

Front engine bed cut from 3/8″ aluminum angle

Filthy engine bilge needs some scrubbing

For an engine room that hasn’t had an engine run in it since I sandblasted and painted the bilge in 2009, there was a lot of oily residue under this engine. The oil actually came from the Ford Lehman engine I initially installed that was rebuilt by Chesapeake Marine Engineering. Consistent with the quality of other work Aric Euler did for me, the engine leaked oil and made a mess. The Lehmans are long gone though, and now the oily mess is, too. Good riddance!

Engine bilge cleaned up nicely

I also have to say that gantry I made is slick! [pats self on back]. Being able to move this one-ton engine around with one hand, or rotate it 90 degrees to get it out of the way is super helpful.

ZF 280A marine gear sump doesn’t clear the engine bed frame

The Cummins engines and ZF gears are identical side-to-side, so the clearance problems are somewhat different from the port side to the starboard. It turns out the port side was far easier to fit.

Bosch jigsaw with a metal-cutting blade easily makes space for the ZF gear

Moroso 400w engine oil pan heater installed

After sanding the paint off the aluminum oil pan, I wiped down the surface with acetone and bonded the Moroso oil pan heater directly to the metal. Then I ran a bead of RTV silicone around the pad and let it sit for 24 hours. With these oil pan heaters installed, I won’t need the (reportedly) troublesome intake air heaters that come from the factory on these Cummins engines. I may remove those later.

Original seacock has to go

The original seacocks were 1-1/2″, which is too small for the Cummins 6CTAs. I’ll cut out the old pipe and weld in new 2″ standpipes later, but first I need to remove the old seacock while the engine is out of the way. The tough part is getting the pipe wrench to bite without damaging the seacock (coming soon to the For Sale section) and still have swing room, but without bashing fingers on the metal framing. Demonstrating the timelessness of “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world,” I used a 2×4 to swing the pipe wrench and get the seacock moving.

Boom

Ready for the hole saw from the under-side

The epoxy bonding the rear engine beds together will take a day to cure, then I’ll bond them and the front engine beds to the stringers and paint everything with Devoe Bar Rust 235 epoxy coating in tintable white base. After that, I’ll drill and bolt the engine beds to the stringers to augment the epoxy bond and then final fit the engine.

Next up on our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Port Engine III