1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing More Stainless Rub Rails

I finally got around to installing some of the stainless rub rails that I polished over the summer of 2016. It’s a good winter job, but only when the temperature stays above 40°F. The lower rub rails were a bit of a challenge since the tent frames and scaffolding come close to the hull. But I got ’em done.

I might need an intervention

I did a lot of stainless polishing over the summer and fall. The end result is great but it sure takes a lot of time. It occurred to me that the highly polished rub rails would make unpolished screw heads stand out. So I spent some more time polishing hundreds of screw heads. It’s like an addiction or something. 🙂

Big difference, right? RIGHT???

Scaffolding framing makes this difficult

The lower rub rails are especially long and they go around the bend to the transom, which makes them tough to install in the best of circumstances. But I wasn’t thinking far enough ahead when I built the scaffolding, so it’s a really tight squeeze. I had to make some space and set up the rail so it’s ready to attach once I applied the Sikkaflex 291LOT sealant.

Remove some of the scaffolding framing

Suspend the rub rail from above at just the right height

In addition to hanging the rail at just the right height, I also had to secure the rail to the scaffolding so it would stay clear of the sealant as I put the screws in from back to front. Once the process started I couldn’t stop to take pictures, but everything went well and it turned out great. Aluminum + stainless + even the slightest bit of moisture makes a mess of paint jobs. But I’d already applied TefGel to the screw holes, so hopefully the paint will never fail around the holes like it did with Chris Craft’s original sealant.

Nice, eh?

Worst possible place for a screw

Nice! Time for the starboard side

The starboard side was slightly easier to do

Done!

That’s a wrap for the lower rub rails. I’ll get the upper rails installed before long. But first, we got a break in the freezing cold temps so we’re going to get the V-berth head painted.

Next up on our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Final Sanding the V-berth Head

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Rub Rails

With the muffler platforms installed, I’m getting close to being able to make the exhaust risers. I’m working out how to make square cuts on 4″ stainless tubing, since it turns out the 4 x 6 metal cutting bandsaw I bought doesn’t track straight on long cuts. This is apparently a common problem, and exhaust fabricators sometimes use bandsaw blade guides to ensure square cuts. I’d prefer not to buy $300 worth of tools I’ll use just once and that aren’t in especially high demand. But while I stew over this and adjust my saw per some instructions online enthusiasts of these saws recommend, there are plenty of other things that need doing…like polishing the rub rails, since they represent the single biggest source of open holes on the exterior that need to be filled before the boat can exit the tent.

Sanded with 500, then 800, then 1000 grit sandpaper

I’d previously sanded the rub rails and then installed them to protect the new Awlgrip paint from incidental contact with the Tent Model X upright frames during storms and days with very high winds. Even then I knew I’d have to remove them all to polish the rub rails and then reinstall. It’s tedious having to do the same job twice, but they served their purpose and protected the paint.

First pass with the rouge…big difference

It takes about three minutes to polish each section between the screw holes.

Section by section, the rails get polished

There are ~40 screw holes per 20-foot stick of rub rail.

Shiny!

Fortunately, there’s immediate gratification in this job. It’s tedious, but the pay-off is worth it.

All the way to the far end

After working my way down the rail with the coarser pad and rouge, I have to do it all over with the fine pad and polishing compound. But first, I’ll do the first polish pass on the rest of the rails.

Nice before/after contrast

Hello…what have we here?

The black goop on the back-side of the rub rail in the picture above is the original 1969 bedding compound that Chris Craft used. It came off with the rail when we first started the project back in 2007~08, and exposed slightly corroded aluminum below. What I noticed here (and elsewhere) is that the bedding compound that stayed attached to the stainless was close to the screw hole.

Another spot where the OE bedding compound, paint, and primer pulled away from the aluminum hull

I took the pic above after I’d already used a razor blade to remove the original bedding compound, paint, and primer. When bedding compound, paint, and primer all pull away from the aluminum below, it means water got under the primer.

The source of the paint and primer failure?

Each screw hole has a very slight ridge around it that wasn’t reamed or sanded smooth back in 1969. The ridge isn’t enormous, but it’s on the back-side facing the paint and is at least as thick as the paint. With vibration over time, I’m speculating that the ridge filed its way through the paint and primer, letting water react with the aluminum molecule by molecule. This, plus the fact that the original screws were not installed using TefGel, might explain why the paint sometimes fails on these boats in the vicinity of the rub rails.

Before polishing, each hole gets deburred and sanded flat

Another one down, another to go

I ran out of rouge and have ordered more, but I made good progress on getting the rub rails polished. This is a good “time filler” when I run out of supplies or need parts on some other job. I’ve got the process worked out, and with the deburring and sanding to remove the ridge on the backside, hopefully once the job is done I’ll never have to polish these again.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Running Lights

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Stainless Rub Rails

Tent Model IX is on life support; it won’t take another storm of any kind. So the top priority is to get the boat ready to convert the tent from a gargantuan spray booth to as small a winter tent as possible. For that to happen, the rub rails that I polished a few weeks ago have to be installed and we have to complete the prop shaft strut barrel installation.

The rub rails have to be installed because the tent will once again extend all the way to the ground, and the wooden tent uprights and 1-1/2″ PVC poles might move around during high winds. The stainless will protect the new Awlcraft 2000 paint from incidental contact from the tent structure.

First, locate and drill out all of the screw holes

Many of the screw holes had been filled when we were fairing the hull back in 2009, so the fairing compound had to be drilled out. I used an undersized drill to lessen the possibility of cutting into the threads. Because the epoxy fairing compound is softer than aluminum, the drill tended to track into the softer material.

Step 2: chase the threads with a tap

There’s one hole every 6 inches. The boat is 46 feet long (plus the curve of the bow). Each hole takes 30 seconds to locate and drill, then a minute to tap. If you do the math, you should conclude (as I did) that this was one tedious job that took a loooooong time to finish.

New 316 Stainless 6-32 screws secure the rub rail to the boat

In the pic above, I’m installing the second rub rail back from the bow piece on the port side. First, I suspend the rail from the overhead tent pipes, then install a screw at one end of the rail and work my way back. While the stainless is very rigid in the Y axis, it’s a freakin’ wet noodle in the X axis. And since they’re 12 feet long, that’s a lot of wet noodle to work with. It would have been faster with a helper, but everybody was busy. Even offers of beer didn’t get a response!

Tef-gel is essential to avoid dissimilar metal corrosion

The rub rail screw holes on these aluminum boats are notorious points of failure for the paint. Back in the day, they didn’t have Tef-gel–a magical goo that reportedly keeps dissimilar metal corrosion at bay. A good sealant on the outside of the rub rail and screw, like Sikaflex 291 LOT, only protects half of the screw. The other half that protrudes on the inside of the hull is bare metal. Because it’s in the relatively humid interior of the boat, the screws will collect condensation when the metal is cold. That moisture can wick into the threads from the backside and start the process of making aluminum oxide that pops the paint off of the aluminum. Tef-gel on the threads of each screw and, using the included mascara brush, inside each threaded hole should stop moisture from getting into the threads.

Add the time required to apply Tef-gel to each screw and screw hole in the “tedium factor” calculation you did earlier. 😉

Upper rub rail is installed

This is, unfortunately, an operation I’ll have to repeat. Aside from the fundamental need to get the winter tent built, the purpose of this installation is to drill out all of the holes and ensure the fit of the rails. I’ll have to remove them all and reinstall using Sikaflex for the final installation. I previously sanded the rub rails to a satin polish but did not do the final buff to make them really shine. Because the tent frames might rub up against the rails over the winter, it would have been risky to final polish them. With the holes cut and drilled, removing and reinstalling next year shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours.

The lower rub rail presented a different challenge

Beautifully smooth…flawless even…and totally useless for locating screws!

While the upper rub rails had a few open screw holes and telltale marks indicating where the filled holes were, there were no such marks for the lower rub rails. The paint job was perfectly smooth. Without any indicator of where the holes were, there weren’t any starting points for the rub rails. There are three stainless sections: the port and starboard parts, which go around the turn at the transom, and the center piece on the transom. The holes for each of the side pieces are in different positions, so they’re not interchangable without drilling lots of new holes. The orientation of the center piece is also determined by the orientation of the outer pieces. There were no apparent starting points, but then I noticed the clue that told the story.

The starboard corner is sharp at the turn to the transom

The port side corner is more round

The stainless pieces have corresponding differences in the corner radii

Problem solved! On to the tedium of drilling, tapping, and Tef-gelling!

Et Voilà

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Propeller Shafts (part II)