1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Welding the Starboard Exhaust Riser

With the port exhaust riser joints and showerhead end plate and and spray nozzles welded up, next I repeated the process on the starboard side. I also cut, fitted, and welded the showerhead. These are coming together pretty well.

The port side has some tight curves

I’ve seen videos of guys welding exhaust tubing who use devices to rotate the parts at the perfect speed, so all the welder has to do is keep the arc steady and keep feeding in the filler. With no fancy rotator device and all of these tight curves, I’ll get by as best I can by purging the pipe with argon, then stitch welding around each tube. The flange that attaches to the turbo and the showerhead end plate were very challenging because they’re so close to the tight radius mandrel bends. The Series 17 torch that came with my AlphaTIG isn’t huge, but I had to use some less-than-optimal torch angles to get in those tighter spaces.

Argon purge line goes in the exhaust temp sender port on the flange

After welding the tube joints, I did the showerhead spray nozzle plate

$188 Zeny Cut 50 Plasma Cutter has paid for itself already

Cut the raw water inlet tube at the mark

6″ diameter grinder wheel will make coping the tube a breeze

Should give a perfect fit to the 6″ OD showerhead tube

Next, orient the overflow outlet

Raw water will enter the showerhead at the top, so the full length of the exhaust tubing inside the showerhead will be doused with water even at idle. As RPMs rise, more water will flow into the showerhead until it’s completely full and water is spraying out of all of the showerhead nozzles. The overflow tube is at the top of the showerhead, so once pressure starts building the excess water will flow up the overflow tube and off the boat via a hose to a thru-hull. This allows more water to flow through the heat exchangers without the additional water taking up space in the exhaust system. This is potentially an issue since I’m using 6″ exhaust rather than the optimal 8″.

Mark the overflow hole and fire up the Zeny plasma cutter again

Sloppy freehand hole cut took about 5 seconds with the Zeny

Makita die grinder makes the hole pretty in a minute or two

Ready to weld!

Argon purge line goes in the top

I used clamps to hold sheet aluminum as caps on each end of the showerhead tube, then taped the argon purge line in the water inlet. Argon is heavier than air, so as it fills the cylinder it pushes the air up and out, leaving a nice argon atmosphere to protect the back side of the welded area from sugaring (rapid oxidation and breakdown of the stainless alloy).

Not bad for a noob hobbyist TIG welder

Jody over at weldingtipsandtricks.com would probably say that looks like Fido’s butt, but then he’s a pro whose got that wicked robot welding hand that I never will. Camera flash makes a couple of the starts look like there are gaps in the weld, but it’s continuous and well fused all the way around.

I fused the inside joint, too, but without filler

Next, fit the showerhead and set up the purge

After tacking the showerhead in a few spots, I taped up all of the nozzle holes on the bottom to keep the argon from draining out.

 

Aluminum foil taped to the tube holds argon that spills over

My TIG torch travel speed is inconsistent and frequently too slow, which puts too much heat into the part. I’m also inconsistent when it comes to adding filler, so I don’t get that stack o’ dimes look that professional welders can do. But the welds are robust, and I am getting better at making them look nice as time goes on. I was joking with the missus that by the time I finish this project, I’ll have developed these news skills pretty well…but will hopefully never have to use them again. 😉

Repeat the process on the spray nozzle end

Starboard riser welding is done!

Inferno Wrap is rated at 2000°F continuous

First layer

Second layer

My original plan was to use two layers of Inferno Wrap, then top that with strips of fiberglass cloth I’ve got left over from the Bullet-proof Cabin Top. Then I was going to use hi-temp epoxy to wet out the top layer and make a hard shell. But I’ve been looking into other approaches and found ceramic insulation blanket material that might be even better. Stay tuned.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Welding the Port Exhaust Riser Showerhead

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Welding the Port Exhaust Riser

First, the bad news. One of my Boatamalan fairing crew guys died last Saturday morning. He was 29.  Went out for beers with buddies after work the night before. Had 7~8 over the course of 6 hours…got home around midnight. At 4:30am, he called his buddy to say he wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be going to work. He went back to bed, but at 6:30am when his wife nudged him to wake him up…he was gone. Stone cold, but without ever having had any kind of health problems. Gus was the brother of my painter, and when we painted the boat back in 2013, the lead painter was up on the scaffolding to paint the top portions of the hull while Gus was below spraying near the chine at the bow. Gus flowed out the Awlgrip paint really well, and he was friendly, helpful, super hard worker…a good man. It’s too bad he’s gone…the second death of the year that’s affected me. 29-years old…I still can’t believe it.

Gus’s handiwork…RIP

With that said, at long last, I finally started welding my exhaust risers together. I tacked the risers together in July 2016 then learned that I need to purge the air from the inside of the stainless tubing before welding. Failing to purge causes oxygen to react with parts of the stainless alloy, which turns it into a crusty black crystaline form on the inside of the tubes that’s prone to rapid corrosion degradation. To purge the air, I need to have a dual regulator that can attach to my one 80cf tank of argon. They make dual regulators that sell for ~$100 and up, but I figured I’d save a buck or two by just using pipe fittings I’ve already got and adding a second el-cheapo regulator off of ebay.

Turns out that was a stupid idea. I should have just bought the off-the-shelf dual regulator.

Eventually I got it all worked out, though, and got to welding.

My argon regulator needs a tee to another

Pull all the bits off one-by-one

Don’t worry…the valve is off. I don’t have a vice to work with–I broke mine–so the bottle provides a stable base.

To Avoid any HURT…do not unassemble.  oops…too late

All the bits and pieces

The way I’ve laid out the pix, you might think there was a smooth transition from risking “hurt” to myself by “unassembling” the regulator, but you’d be wrong. The argon regulator on the left in the pic above sells for $7 on ebay, and it’s advertised as having 1/4 npt threads. It was coming from China, so I had to wait three weeks. The weekend after it arrived, I tried to assemble the whole thing but failed. Turns out those aren’t NPT threads at all…they’re M14X1.5mm. After an absurd amount of wrangling with the seller, just trying (but failing) to get them to correct the ad, I got a full refund on it for misadvertising. Then I found an M14X1.5mm to 1/4″ NPT adapter in England and ordered it. Another week gone. When I finally assembled it and attached it to the argon bottle, all of the joints were gas-tight except for the 1/4″ NPT side of the damned adapter. The more I looked at the threads, the more they looked to me like flat threads, not tapered NPT. Two months had gone by getting to this point, and the only options I could think of were to buy a dual regulator and be done with it or break out the Marine Tex epoxy and glue the leaking joints together.

Marine Tex did the trick

Ready to go

The gold regulator feeds the AlphaTIG, the chrome one feeds the fish tank bubbler at the end of the clear 1/8″ ID PVC hose. The bubbler will act as a diffuser for the gas inside the pipe, which they say helps smooth out the flow, avoid mixing of argon with the air in the pipe (argon is heavier than air), which helps push all of the O2 in the air out of the exhaust pipe.

It was late on that Sunday when I finally got the regulators installed and ready to go…too late to start welding. So I closed up shop and planned to come back the following weekend and get to welding. I spent the whole week “image training” how I’d do each weld, practicing smooth hand movements in the air with my hands holding pretend filler and TIG torch. When the following weekend arrived, I suited up in coveralls, went to the shop, turned on the lights, but when I went to turn on the argon I found it was already on. I’d forgotten to turn off the bottle valve the week before. Checking the gauge, the brand new bottle I’d just bought a week before was down from 1500psi to 500.

Son of a ….

After the Marine Tex had cured and I’d installed it on the argon bottle, I spritzed all of the pipe fittings with soapy water to make sure they were gas tight. But I hadn’t spritzed the main tank connection. So I spritzed it and, sure enough, a bubble started growing out of one spot. It’d been leaking all week long.

Son of a ….

So I got to purging and welding while hoping the bottle would hold out for at least one riser.

Ready to seal up the exhaust flange and start purging

I’m using the 1/8″ NPT fitting on the flange as the port for the purge line. As the pipe fills with argon, it’ll push air out the far side of the exhaust.

On the far end, I taped up all but the top of the outlet

Argon is heavier than air, so having the purge exhaust near the top of the opening will cause the whole pipe to fill with argon, shoving the air out the slit at the top of the pipe. It’s time to seal up the tape on the flange end and get to TIGging.

Stitch welded around the flange

I’m not even close to being a pro-grade welder, but I’m not the worst of hobbyists, either. For all of that image training and practicing in the air, I still don’t have that smooth hand that the pros use to the a stack ‘o dimes weld. My welds may not be perfect, but I’m sure they’ll hold it together. Given the price I was quoted to have a set of risers built (>$5,000) and the amount of money I’m into the stainless tubing, flanges, and insulation thus far (~$1250, with plenty of leftover tubing), I still figure it’s been well worth it building my own. The experience, skills, and knowledge acquired alone has made it worth it!

Stitching the showerhead

The AlphaTIG has a post-flow function that keeps the argon flowing after I stop welding. The dial goes from 1 to 10, and cranking that up keeps argon flowing over the hot stainless so O2 in the air doesn’t oxidize the weld. Where you see color in the weld is where I got the piece too hot from traveling too slow. The post-flow wasn’t long enough, and air got to the weld while it was still hot enough to be oxidized. That’s what causes the purple and other colors in the weld area. I realized too late that I the post-flow knob goes far past the 10 mark. Cranking it fully open helped keep argon on the weld, but in the spots where I traveled too slowly and got it too hot, it was disappointing watching a beautiful, light gold colored weld turn purple in spots when the gas shut off.

Setting up to weld the showerhead nozzle plate

Showerhead plates welded inside and out

The little pin I welded to the outside of the tube in the pic above is a short length of 3/32″ stainless TIG filler rod. I put those in a bunch of spots around the outside of the tube where I’ll wrap it with insulation. The pins will help keep the insulation from moving around.

Good penetration through to the inside, with no “sugar” oxidation

Showerhead nozzle plate welded on the “wet” side

I decided to weld the showerhead plates on both sides, but in retrospect it might have been fine (better, even) to just weld the outside. I was concerned about crevice corrosion if I didn’t get full penetration in the welds, especially inside the water-cooled portion of the showerhead. But the more I think about it, the exhaust will be hot even after the raw water flow to the showerhead shuts off. Any water remaining in the showerhead will drain into the exhaust hose. If no water remains in potential crevices on the backside of welds because the heat flashes it off, crevice corrosion can’t happen. The only time that corrosion could happen is when the engines are running and the showerheads are full of water. I’m thinking that it would be thousands of hours (maybe tens of thousands) before there was a problem. If I ever have to make another set, maybe I’ll just assemble the showerhead and weld the back plate and nozzle plates on the outside.

Aluminum plate caps off the tube

It was challenging clamping the irregularly shaped riser to my cheapo Harbor Freight welding bench so the outlet at the showerhead was pointed up. Gravity will keep the argon purge in the tube, but the aluminum plate helps with that as well as serving as a heat sink. As I’m staring at this picture now, I’m thinking there was absolutely no reason to weld the outside here. Oh well…what’s done is done.

Showerhead nozzle plate welded on the exhaust outlet side

The gas ran out on the last insulation pin

I’ll have to run to the local welding supply again to get another bottle of argon so I can continue welding the risers together. It’s all good though. And I’ve got to say, even though I can see that my welds aren’t the best, I’m still having a good time doing this part of the job.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Welding the Starboard Exhaust Riser

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 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

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Final Exhaust Riser Fit-up

The V-berth head is still stalled while I wait for my painter to show up. But there are so many other things going on that the refit continues to move forward. Most recently, I did the final fit-up on the exhaust riser parts in preparation for welding them all together.

Port riser points at the muffler

New showerhead parts fit well

The showerhead drain hole goes at the bottom

Showerhead test fitted and marked

Starboard riser ready for fit-up

Sharpie marks the spot

Just like that

The raw water hose needs to come down like so…

Heat exchanger outlet needs to be reoriented

I suppose I could also use a formed hose that takes a hard 45° turn with a connector pipe to a flex hose…gonna have to ponder on that for a bit.

Cutting the hole for the raw water inlet proved challenging

I used a cutoff wheel to cut slots in the showerhead water jacket, but the heat from that discolored the stainless. I thought I’d try using some good Bosch metal cutting jigsaw blades to connect the slots, but that 12 gauge 316 stainless burned up blades after about 3/16″. This isn’t going to work. So I went online and started looking for options..and that’s when I discovered that the price for hobby-grade plasma cutters had gone down significantly since the last time I checked.

The Zeny 50 amp plasma cutter…$188 on ebay, delivered

The Zeny plasma cutter comes with almost everything in the box. You have to supply the air hose, air quick disconnect, and plug for the electric cord. I had a ruined air hose from the bastard thieves who stole my small air compressor, among many other things, during the big 2014 break-in. But it was just what I needed to connect the supplied air filter to the plasma cutter.

The supplied eye shield/mask is a bit of a joke, but for $188 it’s amazing they include it

Ground clamp is marginal, but for this price…

The torch isn’t elegant but, again, for $188…

I’d rather have a finger trigger than a thumb switch, but it all works.

I used three Bosch jigsaw blades making that one wedge cut

Five seconds later…

I’m waiting for the 1-1/2″ stainless tubing I’ll use for the raw water inlet to show up, and I didn’t want to cut too far. I’ll do a prettier job for the real deal.

As long as the Zeny 50 holds up for a couple of cuts, it will easily pay for itself

Gotta love the Chinese

They can make a high tech inverter plasma cutter with a digital readout and deliver it to the east coast of North America for $188, with a bunch of people making a bit of profit along the way. But the Chinese interpretation of a phillips drive hose clamp leaves a bit to be desired. There’s the shape of the phillips drive, but there’s no depth to it. Just goes to show that you can steal an idea, but the execution is what really counts. But for the price, I really can’t complain.

I’m going to hold off on welding the risers together until the 1-1/2″ tubing arrives for the raw water inlet. I’ve got to back purge the riser by filling them with argon before welding, and there’s no sense in wasting gas doing that more than once.

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

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Exhaust Showerhead Parts

Earlier this year, I started building the exhaust risers for my Cummins 6-CTA turbodiesels. Verocious Motorsports had all of the straight and mandrel bent tubing I needed. I cut the tubing and tacked it all together using some new toys for 2016: my Harbor Freight metal-cutting bandsaw and AlphaTIG welder. Learning to weld aluminum and stainless has been one of many great things about this refit. Whoever said old dogs can’t learn new tricks was full of it!

Computer aided design (CAD) software has also made it a lot easier to go from concept to execution than old school pencils, rulers, and blueprints. I’ve used Sketchup Make, a free CAD program, to design the aft stateroom, galley, and V-berth, but for the last few months I’ve been trying to figure out how to use it to make showerhead parts for the exhaust risers. After reading tons of material online, it didn’t take long to make the 2D model in Sketchup. The problem was getting the free version to output in a file type that can be read by CNC, waterjet, or laser jet machines. The native file outputs in Sketchup are proprietary (.skb and .skp) and aren’t compatible with anything, near as I can tell. I found a Sketchup extension that changes the output to a machine readable .dxf file format, but for the life of me couldn’t make it work. All of my drawings turned into straight lines when viewed in LibreCAD, a free 2D CAD app. Sketchup’s user interface is a lot easier for me to use than LibreCAD, and I really don’t want to spend a bunch of time becoming that proficient in LibreCAD. Sketchup Pro — the professional version of Make — exports in all sorts of CAD file types, but at $695 it’s a pretty big investment. But eventually I came up with a workaround, found a fab shop with a laser jet, and now have all the parts I need to finish the exhaust riser.

Showerhead parts in Sketchup

The exhaust tubing is 4″ OD mill finished stainless. The outer tubing for the showerhead is 6″ polished stainless, with an ID of 5.871″. I’ll run a continuous TIG bead around the showerhead backer and the nozzle end to attach them to the 4″ tubing, then slide the 6″ tube onto the assembly and run a continuous bead around both ends of that, too. I also need to add a water inlet to the showerhead, but that comes later.

Next, export the two components into separate jpg files

This “backer” will seal the gap between the exhaust tube and high end of the showerhead tube. Circles in Sketchup are made up of short sections of straight lines that are all connected. The more segments you specify, the smoother the lines are and the rounder the final part will be. A triangle is the least-round circle you can make using only three straight line segments. A square, with four segments, is a lightly more rounded circle than a triangle. When making the model in Sketchup, I changed the properties of each circle from 26 segments (the default) to 99, which yields nice, smooth circles.

There were a few issues I want to avoid with my showerhead, one of which is that at low RPMs I don’t want to cook the rubber exhaust hose to which it attaches. This can happen with OEM Cummins showerheads because the holes are symmetrical all the way around. If all of the water that’s entering the inlet at low RPMs can exit the showerhead from only the bottom holes, the top of the exhaust pipe and hose don’t get cooled. Retaining more water in the showerhead and having it exit the nozzles higher up will cool more of the pipe and hose at low RPMs.

My showerhead, with a “re-size line” below

The raw water intakes are 2″ ID, while the raw water outlet at the heat exchanger, which feeds the showerhead, measures 1-3/4″. The raw water inlet for the showerhead will also be 1-3/4″ OD, with an area of ~2.2 inches². I’ve got six 1/4″ diameter holes starting at ~80° from the bottom, followed by four 3/8″ diameter holes, and then seven 1/2″ diameter holes, plus a 1/2″ half-hole for a drain at the bottom. The total area of the holes is 2.2 inches². So even at idle the water will be in direct contact with most of the exhaust pipe and water will be exiting from nozzles relatively high around the pipe and cooling the exhaust  and the hose. When the engines are off, all of the water will drain from the showerhead via the bottom hole. This should eliminate the possibility of crevice corrosion.

The resize line is necessary because I imported these jpg files into LibreCAD, then traced the outlines and deleted the jpg layer, leaving the traced outlines ready to be saved in the .dxf format. But LibreCAD’s standard measure for imported jpgs is pixels, and there is no simple way to instruct LibreCAD to convert pixel dimensions to specific linear dimensions. So if I don’t resize it, the LibreCAD file will see that resize line as being 931 units (ie pixels) long, while the laser jet that makes the part would see it as 931 units (ie inches or mm or ???). To re-dimension from pixels to inches after importing the full-size pic to LibreCAD, I trace a straight vector line over the 6.000 inch “resize line” in the jpg. Then I select that vector line and the jpg and use the resize function, entering 6.000/931 as the conversion factor. This shrinks the whole thing to the proper vector dimension in inches. Then I delete the jpg layer and the resize vector line, leaving just the part I want in the proper dimension, to within .001″, ready to be saved in the .dxf format.

Et voila!

After a bit of hunting around, I decided to have Stainless Steel Specialties, Inc. in Raleigh, North Carolina make the parts. Their prices were quite a bit less than what I was quoted from the laser jet fab shops that come up in internet search ads, they didn’t care that it was a small job, turnaround time was reasonably quick, and the parts came out just like I imagined them. I’ll be using Stainless Steel Specialties for some future laser jet work I need to have done.

Stainless showerhead parts

Just about a perfect fit!

The tubing isn’t perfectly round, but this fit is well within tolerance.

Perfect fit on the exhaust tube, too!

Dry fitting the showerhead parts to see how long the 6″ tube should be

Harbor Freight bandsaw does the job, but just barely

The dry-fitted starboard riser

The showerhead backer

The showerhead

I really wanted to fire up my AlphaTIG and start putting the final welds on this thing, but I still have to take all the pieces to the boat and “clock” the parts to make sure everything is oriented properly. When the flanges are mounted on the turbos and the exhaust is pointed at the mufflers, the showerhead drain holes need to be on the bottom. Then I need to mark the places where the raw water inlets need to be attached to the showerhead outer tubes so they’re pointed at the raw water outlet on the heat exchangers.

This all makes perfect sense in my head and when I read it, but I’m not sure it’ll make sense to you readers. All I can say is, stay tuned…the pix will tell the story in a week or so.

Oh, and…update on that .dxf extension for Sketchup that I couldn’t get to work for months…it does work. I always start my Sketchup views like I’m drawing on a wall, with the drawing oriented vertically. But the Sketchup .dxf extension views the object as if the drawing was on a table, laid out horizontally. So my 2D renderings of circles laid out on a virtual wall (when viewed from the Front, which is my default) were rendered into 1D lines when the extension viewed them from above, looking down. I could never understand why all of my converted 2D files changed from the shapes I wanted into single dimension lines. I just assumed it was a poorly designed extension. By rotating each rendering 90° along the X axis, all the sudden it’s a lot easier converting Sketchup renderings to .dxf files. I don’t have to do any of that resizing from pixels to inches anymore. Sure would have been nice if the extension author had put that little tidbit in the instructions! 😉

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Fitting the Transom Door

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Polishing the Bow Rub Rail

It takes pretty much a full day to sand and polish each 12′ stick of stainless rub rail, but I’ve got most of the pieces done. The only ones remaining are the V-shaped one at the bow and a 7′ long piece that for the life of me I can’t find. The pictures from late 2007, when the refit began, show there were rub rails all the way around. Hopefully, that last one will show up in my garage before long. If anybody in the Mid-Atlantic region has some spare 1″ rub rail, please let me know in the comments below.

Anyway, I made another polishing jig that I thought would speed up the process for the V-shaped bow rub rail. There were a lot of scratches there, presumably from the 6′ chain on the anchor rode. Which has me thinking I need to make a bow pulpit/roller so I can raise and lower the anchor easier and without damaging the shiny paint and aluminum. All in due time…

Good news!

The uninsured boat that exploded next to mine, damaging the tent, my new Awlgrip paint, and blowing out a window in 2015 finally got hauled away. It was still there on the day I polished the bow rub rail, then gone the next. Good riddance to bad rubbish, if you ask me.

Two jigs to polish the bow rub rail

Lots of 1970’s paint residue and staining on the stainless

Then there are the scratches and gouges…time to break out the sander

First, I remove the scratches, paint residue, and stains with 150 grit

It was around this time that I realized two jigs were going to make the process longer than just one. While using two jigs allows me to clean up the top edge, which has lots of paint residue on it, I have to do the bottom edge separately after flipping the rail. Then it occurred to me that the KISS method (Keep It Simple, Stupid) was the way to go.

Turns out one jig works best

With one leg of the rail on the ground, the portion attached to the jig is at the perfect angle to sand and polish the face and both top and bottom sides in one go. I’ll just do all of the sanding and polishing on each leg separately.

After one pass with 220 grit , I follow up with 320 Wet or Dry and a dab of water

Next I hit it with 400 grit

Next is 600 grit, where the shine finally starts to come out

1200 grit makes it shinier still

I’ve had this stuff sitting in a drawer for 10 years!

The final sanding is done with 1500 grit.

The first polishing pass with black ebony compound

Wrap up the buffing with brown Tripoli and then white diamond compounds

Gouges at the bow? What gouges at the bow?

In the pic above, I’d finished the sanding course with 1500 grit. Even without polishing, it’s a lot shinier than the rail was before I started.

First buffer pass with black ebony compound, then brown Tripoli

Final pass with white diamond compound

And that’s a wrap!

Speaking of wrap, notice that in the pix above I’ve wrapped my buffer adapter (a commonly available 5/8″-11 coupling nut) and the bolt that holds it all together with masking tape. This acts as a pad so that when (not if) the buffer slips off the surface I’m polishing, the tape protects the surface from the rapidly rotating steel. I also double up the buffing wheels, which gives me more polishing surface to work with and seems to keep the pads on the stainless. With just one wheel, it was slipping off pretty regularly.

Well, until I find that other piece of stainless rub rail, I’m done polishing outdoors at the boatyard. I still have to polish the stanchion poles, but I’ll be doing that over the winter in my garage.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Exhaust Showerhead Parts

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Polishing Even More Stainless

Bad news: my boatamalan* painter has gone off the grid. He came by the tent a month ago and we talked about next steps for the v-berth head. He was going to come by that Thursday and get to work. But when I arrived on the weekend, it was clear he hadn’t come by. Since then, he hasn’t responded to phone calls or text messages, and his coworkers have indicated that he doesn’t come to work regularly anymore. I know he’s been a disgruntled employee for a while now, and for good reasons by the sound of it, but he’s also had health problems. Since he doesn’t respond, I have no idea if he quit his job or is in the hospital. I haven’t given up on him yet, but for now all paint operations are suspended indefinitely.

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

In the meantime, I’ve been polishing stainless…lots and lots of stainless…and also getting the glass installed in the portholes. On the stainless, it’s not just a trivial matter of making things pretty. Each rub rail and vent involves many screw holes and other openings into the boat, so they’ve got to be installed before I can even wash the dust off the outside. I’ve got the process pretty much nailed down, but each 12′ rub rail takes about 6 hours to polish, and more complicated pieces take even more time.

All the big trees around the tent have been removed

The tree removal crew got rid of the rotten old trees next to the tent without causing any damage. That’s pretty amazing considering how many big limbs were hanging over the tent. The tent’s a lot brighter inside than it used to be. In summer, it’ll be hotter, too. Gotta get this thing done…

9 portholes are ready to install, 5 to go

Lower rub rail is 16′ long, with a bend near the end

Two polishing jigs help hold it in position

The floppy end is hard to polish

2 screws and a broken board stabilize the floppy end

First, sand lightly to clean the surface and identify scratches and gouges

Use 150 grit to remove scratches and gouges

Next, go to 220 grit

Next, ramp up to 320 wet or dry paper dipped in water

Then 400 grit wet or dry

Followed by 600 grit wet or dry

Then 1000 wet or dry

1200 wet or dry

And finally 1500 wet

After sanding with 1500 grit, the stainless is pretty shiny. Hitting it with the buffer really knocks it home. There are three courses for buffing, first using black emory, then brown tripoli, and finally white diamond compounds.

That’s some good lookin’ stainless

8 hours later…Shiny!

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Engine Room LED Lighting

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Polishing Still More Stainless

I picked up a new polishing kit since my previous buffer pads were starting to come apart and throw lots of string. The Enkay kit comes with three pads and four different buffing compounds, and three of them — black emery, white diamond, and red rouge — are recommended for stainless. I have to say, using all three results in a noticeably better finish than the one-step compound I was using when I polished some of the rub rails before. I don’t know that anybody would notice standing on the dock 20′ away, but I suppose that’s the nature of labors of love like this.

Enkay polishing kit is a good value

Original but nasty vent

Unloved aft vent scoop

There are two bilge vents at the transom and three along each side of the toe rail. The boat came with both stainless scoops for the aft end of the boat and four of the larger scoops on either side. I haven’t had any luck finding the other two side scoops I need, but the stained and paint-spattered originals that I do have polished up quite well.

After an hour with the buffer

Before…not so shiny

After…SHINY!!!

The worst of the staining was on the lower edges

In addition to paint that a sloppy painter spooged along the lower edge when they did the enamel roll & tip job in the 1980s, there’s also white stains all around the lower edge that are extremely resistant to buffing. I think it’ll go faster and look better if I first sand the vents with 1200 and 1500 grit wet or dry, like I did with the safety rail stanchions, before buffing.

Cleaned up real nice…just took more time than it should have

The vents appear to be TIG welded

If I can’t find used replacements for the vents I need, I guess I can always order some stainless and use my AlphaTIG to make new ones. It’s not like I’ve got too many other things to do!

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Polishing Even More Stainless

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Refurbishing Stainless Stanchions

The safety rails need to be installed before a surveyor will sign off on the boat being ready to splash. We sanded and laid three heavy coats of West System epoxy with the 207 Special Clear hardener on the original mahogany rails back in August 2013, and they’ve been sitting ever since. Now that the safety rail hardware has been rechromed, I’ll install all the pieces in their old locations on the safety rail and use them as a guide for where to install the stanchion bases. Then I’ll remove the stanchion tops and bases, and we’ll put the final coats of Imron MS1 clearcoat on the mahogany toe rail and safety rail. But before I do the final installation, the stainless safety rail tubing needs to be sanded and polished. It’s not the most exciting work, but the results are visually apparent pretty quickly.

Unloved stainless steel safety rail stanchion

This stanchion has been sitting in a 5-gallon bucket full of other stanchions that easily came apart from their chromed bronze bases when we disassembled the boat way back in 2008 (YIKES!).

My new Porter Cable quarter sheet sander

I like this sander so far. It’s lightweight and fits well in my hands. The locking tabs are robust, and the pad can be used with stick-it or plain-backed paper.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

The other two stanchions in the pic above did not separate easily from their bronze bases. While the rest of the stanchions were in a bucket under the boat, these sat in my garage, where I applied penetrating oil to them over the last year. When I finally got around to applying heat to them and separating them from their bronze bases, I got a bit of a surprise. One foot away from where they were sitting was a closed gallon jug of muriatic acid that I’ve used to clean heat exchangers. The side of the stainless that was facing the jug of acid had clearly been attacked by acid vapor. There’s extensive pitting and surface rust, but only on that side. I have no idea how acid vapors escaped the sealed plastic jug, but that’s clearly what happened. It’s going to take a lot more than a light sand and polish to clean these up.

The center one is the worst

The stanchion at the top with all of the surface rust actually cleans up pretty easily. That center one, though, has pretty deep pitting.

Even the nicest one has deep gouges

I assume that at some point, somebody put a pipe wrench on this one and gouged it. I hit it with a buffing wheel on my modified Makita polisher, and it shines up pretty well. But the gouges don’t look good, even shined up. It’ll take some pretty course sandpaper to remove that.

150 grit does a pretty good job on the deep gouges

A little bit more with 150 grit, then switch up to 220

Then switch up to 400 grit wet or dry paper

The stanchion with surface rust cleaned up nicely with just 400 grit

After sanding down specific rough spots,  I sanded the entire surface of each tube using 400 grit wet or dry. After clamping the paper to the pad, I dip the paper in a shallow pan of water and roll the tube back and forth while rotating the sander to use the entire surface of the paper. It doesn’t look especially coordinated in the video below, but the hand I’d normally use to steady the tube was occupied holding the camera. I was at the 1,000 grit stage in the video, but the motion is the same for all of the grits.

 

Replace the paper, dip the paper, sand and roll…then repeat

Tedious…but the results are looking good

Rust and pipe wrench gouges are gone at 400 grit

The pitted stanchion isn’t perfect, but it’s getting there

That’s about as much time as I’m willing to spend on the pitted stanchion

There are still some pits visible, but I spent an hour just on this one and removed quite a bit of material. Once it’s polished, I think it’ll look fine.

Surface rust? What surface rust?

600 grit on the center stanchion starts bringing out the shine

600 grit on the pitted stanchion…not too bad

1000 grit on the right side, 600 on the left

1200 grit is looking pretty good

1500 grit on the middle tube…pits? What pits?

It took a solid six hours to get these three stanchions ready for the polisher. Fortunately, none of the rest of the stanchions have the severe pitting and rust problem, so depending on how badly the gouges are I’ve got the sanding process down to about one hour per tube. I’ve also got two much longer, curved tubes that serve as the bow safety rail, so they will take more time. Fortunately, they only have surface stains, so I can start with 400 grit there. Unfortunately, my modified Makita polisher doesn’t work well with tubes. For that, I need to use my bench grinder/polisher in my garage, which I’ll be doing over the next several weeks in my spare time.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Polishing Still More Stainless