Back in November 2016, I polished the worst of the stainless safety rail stanchions. In December 2016, I made three new stanchions out of stainless pipe and pipe nipples to replace some that were curiously made of tubing. I moved on to other things before getting around to polishing the new stanchions, so they’ve been sitting in my garage, nicely welded together but with nothing but the mill finish. I took advantage of a warm day recently to try and put a polish on one of them.
The good, the bad, and the ugly
After sanding with 80 grit, the ugly starts looking better
Top to bottom in the above picture is a 50-year old OEM pipe stanchion, a mill finish stanchion as welded by yours truly, and another one I made that’s been sanded with 80 grit.
120 grit…looking better still
220 grit and it’s getting kinda shiny
Transition to 400 wet or dry, and it’s even more shiny
I keep an old Tupperware lid nearby with a bit of water in it to keep the wet or dry paper wet. It seems to last longer.
600 grit…gonna need protective eyewear for the shiny glare soon
After 1200 grit, the reflective quality is roughly equivalent to 6-pint beer goggles
My stockpile of sandpaper tops out at 1500
Time to switch up to polishing compounds.
The black colored compound stick really lit up that stainless!
The brown compound does an even more amazing job
WARNING! DO NOT LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE SHINY STAINLESS!
Seriously…this stuff could cause permanent eye damage on a sunny day
When polished stainless looks like chrome…
Well…that was fun. Two hours, including fancy polishing table setup time. I’ve only got two more of these to polish, plus about 15 of the OEM ones. But the really tough part will be polishing the curved pipes that go around the bow.
When I was dry-fitting the starboard safety rail, I found that some of the stanchions were obviously not original equipment. Convinced that it would be a mistake to use the replacements, with their threads only cut to half-depth, I decided to make myself some new stanchions from proper stainless pipe instead of tubing.
Center OE stanchion is pipe stock, the two on the left and right are tube
The OD for 1″ tubing is smaller than for 3/4″ pipe, so you don’t get a full set of water-tight NPT threads if you use tube in stanchion bases that are NPT threaded. I absolutely don’t want water getting into the toe rail mahogany like it obviously had before we started the refit.
Two 72″ sticks of 304L stainless 3/4″ pipe
Cut to size
Four stanchions need to be threaded
I considered buying pipe threading tools, but I can’t see myself ever using them again so it’s hard to justify the cost. Plus, I remembered that the local big box hardware store can cut and thread pipe. What could possibly go wrong?
Houston…we have a problem
The threads cut by the local home center were clearly not right. They’d only thread in 3~4 turns, and there’s no way that would be water tight. On the suggestion of a couple of fabricators, I went with a different approach.
304L stainless nipples, factory threaded in NPT
The home center threads look OK sideways
Trianglized pipe = fail
The helpful fellow working the thread cutter at the home center did mention on the 4th cut that the die was maybe not as sharp as it once was…THANKS!
2×4 block + bronze Tee contraption makes a perfect jig
The wooden 2×4 block was cut perfectly square and the same length as the Tee, which I’ve had for years in my spare plumbing parts bag. The Tee holds the nipple square, so the cut will be very nearly perfectly square to the centerline of the nipple. This is very important for what comes next.
Deburr the cut nipple
A match made in…my garage
Nice, full depth fit
Looks square enough
Insert the new pipe into the stanchion base
Argon purge line sealed on one end of the pipe
I’m using argon to purge the inside of the pipe to keep oxygen away from the weld area, so the stainless steel remains “stainless.”
Clamped to the welding bench
Just a wee bit more tungsten stick-out than usual
That’s a 3/4″ wide roll of painter’s tape for comparison. Total stick-out is an inch, heavy. Between the argon purge and argon coming from the #8 TIG torch gas lens I’m using, I think it should weld OK.
This is nuts
I’ve found many times that the key is to quit thinking about it…just hit the pedal, watch the puddle, and go.
That tacked up just fine
Good fit between the parts, too. That little Harbor Freight metal cutting bandsaw does a good job cutting square once you ignore the gibberish in the factory manual and set it up right.
Shorten up the tungsten stick-out and set up V blocks
This is the perfect job for a parts rotator, but (again) I can’t justify the cost. So I’ll hold the torch with one hand and rotate the pipe with the other. The big hunk of aluminum angle at the threaded end acts as a dam to keep the argon inside the pipe and absorb some of the weld heat. I’ll just fuse the parts rather than using filler.
So much easier than welding inside the pipe
Not bad for a first effort
Great fusion on those tack welds
Two down; purple means too much heat/too little argon
Again, good fusion on the tacks
And that’s three
I held the tungsten within 1/16″ of the pipe here, which really tightened up the arc and kept the heat affected zone to a minimum. I wish I could do that consistently on all of my welds.
last one
Light touch on the bench grinder and done
So, now I’ve got all of my stanchions the same size in all dimensions, with pipe threads on one end that fully seat into the chromed bronze stanchion base. The next step will involve sanding and polishing…man, I’m sick of polishing stainless. But the winter will be long this year, and it’s a good garage job. Also, I plan to wrap up the exhaust riser insulation this weekend and apply the hard shell FRP coating. Once that cures, they’ll be ready to install.
In other news, my painter is reportedly back in the mood to moonlight. So hopefully I’ll have some progress to report on the V-berth head paint job that was supposed to be done seven months ago. Also, word has it Santa dropped some tinted glass off the other night. So that’s the good news.
The bad news is that last weekend I pulled the catalytic converters on my Nissan Frontier and found evidence of heavy beating with a large hammer by the shop that rebuilt the transmission. I understand they had to remove part of the exhaust to get the tranny out, but I’m not sure beating it hard enough to put dents in the pipe was the right approach. Since we got the truck back it’s sometimes felt like maybe the engine wasn’t quite right. When I got the forward cats out, the matrices inside were mostly large chunks and ceramic powder. The rear cats were completely plugged since they were downstream of the disintegrated front cats. I did a compression test, since these engines are known to have significant valve overlap under certain conditions. Compression was 175~185psi on the driver’s side bank, then 200 on the rear and 110psi in the center cylinder for the passenger side. The front spark plug on the passenger side is inaccessible without pulling the intake manifold, but that 110psi hole suggests that ceramic dust from the broken cat may have been sucked in through the exhaust valve, taking out the rings and cylinder bores. This would be even more likely with the exhaust plugged. And the connection this has to my Roamer refit is that I need the truck to move my Miller Trailblazer mobile welding rig to the boatyard and weld up the main raw water inlets. That’ll be on hold while I figure out what to do about this most recent development with the truck.
Either this is the most unlucky truck ever, or the tranny shop fractured the catalytic converters when they beat on the exhaust pipe. Running the truck normally then blew the converters apart. It looks like it needs a new engine. Naturally, the transmission shop says there’s no connection between what they did and my latest truck woes. Like I said before, my Life Is An Old-School Country Western Song.
When the refit began back in late 2007, one of the good things that led us to start the work was that there was very little deep corrosion in the aluminum hull and decks. But one of the worst areas for corrosion on the boat was under the mahogany toe rail. The original sealant had given up in some spots and let water wick into the wood. While starting rot in the wood, the water also worked its way to the fasteners that secured the toe rail to the aluminum deck. From there, water worked its way past the fasteners and under the original chromate primer, and that’s where the white aluminum oxide started to grow. We used a very different approach on the new mahogany toe rail than Chris Craft did originally, epoxying and bolting the toe rail to the deck, with painted fillets covering the joint. Water cannot come in from underneath like it did before. The DuPont MS1 clear coat I’m using on the toe rail will keep water from coming through the top and sides of the mahogany, so long as I keep up on the 5-year maintenance cycle. But I recently cut all of the holes and dry fitted the safety rail stanchions, and each of those holes can provide a path for water to start rotting the mahogany and ruining my new paint. To stop that from happening, I saturated each hole with epoxy.
Tools of the trade
I use the Vix Bit to center the drill in two stanchion screw holes. Then I temporarily secure the stanchion base with two wood screws. Then I drill the remaining holes with the Vix bit and step up through the drill sizes to 11/32, which is 1/32 larger than 5/16″, which is the size of the stanchion base oval head fasteners. I went slightly oversized because I’ll fill the holes with epoxy and I don’t want the screw threads cutting through the epoxy surface when I do the final installation. If water does somehow find its way into any of these screw holes, it will have a very hard time getting through the epoxy coating to the wood below.
Fresh from the chrome shop…with 47-year old sealant still attached
The chrome shop apparently didn’t bother to remove the sealant from the under side of the stanchion bases before replating them. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to have caused a problem for the new plating.
First holes drilled dead-center
Perfectly centered holes
I should also mention that these holes I’m drilling for the fasteners only go as far as the aluminum deck. I won’t drill and tap the aluminum until I’m doing the final stanchion base installation. That way, the holes will hold epoxy like it’s in a cup, sealing the mahogany surface inside the hole as well as the aluminum that’s exposed by the drill point.
Blow out the dust and its ready for epoxy
There are 20 stanchions, six cleats, and a few other bits and pieces that all needed to have the holes drilled out, and six steps for each hole. That’s a lot of tedious hole drilling. But eventually I got them all done and ready for epoxy.
Use a syringe to put epoxy in each hole
Rather than wasting epoxy by filling each hole to the top, instead I filled each one 1/4 of the way or so then used one of the original bronze machine screws as a plunger to force the epoxy into the grain from the bottom of the hole to the top.
Drop in a machine screw
Epoxy squeezes out just before the screw bottomed out…we’ll let that soak in for a bit
Next one, epoxy squeezes out before the screw bottoms out
I use an acid brush to move the squeezed out epoxy into the bigger stanchion base hole to saturate it, too.
This screw bottoms out without any squeeze out…needs more epoxy
That’s more like it
With each screw hole interior wetted out, I periodically returned to each stanchion and plunged the hole with the screw. This pushes the epoxy into the grain and keeps the surface wet all the way to the top. The screw threads also knock off any bubbles that form, which helps the epoxy wick in even better.
A bit too much in this screw hole, but it ultimately all soaked in
Final check…the epoxy is starting to stiffen
One last plunge
Brush off the excess
Apply it to the big stanchion base hole
Wipe with alcohol to clean up…and move to the next
It took a day to do each side, first drilling all the holes. Then filling them with epoxy. Then going back and plunging with the screws 3-4 times, adding a bit of epoxy when the screws bottomed out, before the final plunge at each hole. That’s another weekend gone, but this was an essential step that will hopefully save me lots of maintenance and heartbreaking repairs in the future.
With the bow safety rail dry fitted, next I need to dry fit the mahogany safety rails that go down both sides of the boat. While putting it all together, I found more clues about the rough history of this formerly abused boat. Those clues also add more challenges to getting the boat reassembled and ready to splash.
The stainless bow safety rail is dry fitted
Nice chromed bronze rail parts
Nylon spacers to protect the chrome
I sanded down 1/4″ nylon washers to make the spacers.
The spacers have a snug fit in the hole
Next, I started to install the chromed bronze tops for the stanchions. The stanchion bases were stolen back in 2014 when the bastard thieves burglarized the tent, but the stainless upright pipes were under the boat in a bucket. The stanchion pipe tops were, I believe, original.
Original stanchion top screw holes on the underside of the safety rail
Turns out the chromed bronze stanchion tops aren’t a uniform shape
I had to go through the stanchion tops one-by-one to find the specific one that fit each of the original holes. There are 20 stanchions, with two possible orientations for each stanchion top. I spent quite a bit of time figuring out which ones go where before deciding it really doesn’t matter. The toe rail is new, and the mahogany doesn’t care where I drill holes. It had also become clear that at least some of the stanchions had been relocated before.
Each stanchion top gets the set screw hole threads cleaned before attaching
I plan to just fill the original screw holes in the old mahogany with epoxy and wood flour. You can see two old bungs on the right of the pic above, so this rail has had holes filled before. They’re not perfect, so I’m not going to try to reuse screw holes that are very likely stripped out anyway.
Another thing worth noting in the pic above is the threads on the stainless pipe. The threads aren’t full depth, and they’re not the full length that 3/4″ NPT threads should be. Strange…
More strangeness…two stanchion pipes have no threads
The chromed bronze stanchion bases have 3/4″ NPT threads at the bottom, into which the pipes thread. The bases also have two set screws to lock the pipes in position. But two of the pipes have no threads at all, and they are shorter than the rest by the length of the threads. I have no idea why Chris Craft would have done this.
Pipe tops are inconsistent
Most of the pipe tops have been ground down, but not all. It turns out there are two different styles of stanchion tops on this boat, one is sized for 3/4″ pipe and has a 1.05 opening (3/4″ pipe has a 1.050″ OD). The other is sized for 1″ tubing and has a .996 opening. The pipe with the partial threads three pix up is actually 1″ tube (not pipe), with a .995 OD. The two stanchion tops in the pic above fit snugly over the 1.050″ OD pipe. All of the other pipes have had material crudely removed (with a grinder?) from the top to resize them down so they’ll fit in the tubing stanchion tops with the .996 ID. So, either Chris Craft was randomly pulling parts off the shelf to get this boat out the door, or something funky is going on.
Either way, I’ve got to keep moving forward. Time to cut some holes.
Start each hole with the centering drill in place to keep the saw from moving around
Remove the drill and complete sawing each hole
Chisel out the wood
In the pic above, you can just see the dimple caused by the tip of the centering drill.
Remove all of the wood to make a roughly flat bottom
Repeat the process three times, then lift the safety rail into place and secure it from the tent rafters.
The forward port safety rail is dry fitted
Attaching stanchion tops to the aft port safety rail
Getting ready to lift the aft port safety rail into place
1, 2, 3…lift!
The aft-most stanchion goes just in front of the helm door opening
It’s been nine long years since these safety rails have been on the boat, and they were in pretty rough condition in late 2007 when the refit began. For a minute there, I was real happy to see the old parts sitting where Chris Craft intended (albeit hanging from the tent rafters with string). But then, I attached the stanchion pipes and…more strangeness.
What the…?
The pipes are hanging at an angle free and clear of the toe rail…not even close to lining up.
Gad…the safety rail is twisted, especially in the center
You gotta be kidding!
What was never apparent when the mahogany rails were on the concrete floor in my garage, or on the side decks, or even in the spray booth when we sanded them before coating with West System epoxy and the 207 special hardener was that this one rail had pretty bad twist. It only became apparent when I attached it to the boat and started putting the stanchions on. Coupled with the stanchions that used tubing rather than pipe, and the mixed up stanchion tops, this just adds to the mystery of how this boat came to be this way. A twisted safety rail is one more headache I didn’t need. But it’s not a headache I have to deal with right now. Either way, the stanchion bases need to be dry fitted and all of the holes drilled before I can seal all of the exposed wood with epoxy and get ready for the final sprayed coats of DuPont MS1 clearcoat. Gotta stay focused on the priority of getting the spray painting done as soon as possible.
1969chriscraftroamer46 