1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Fixing the Nor’easter Damage II

With the hardtop damaged fixed, the crew moved on to the windshield frame and cabin top. The Nor’easter in March 2018 broke the overhead tent frames, which are made of 1-1/2″ PVC pipe. The high winds pushing against the tent skin caused the broken pipes to whip back and forth for hour after hour, which gouged and abraded the Awlcraft 2000 shiny paint on the cabin top and rubbed through the  Awlgrip used for the non-skid. Keep in mind that we finished the Awlgrip paint job in 2013, and it’s only been exposed to sunlight when I’ve replaced the tent skin. It’s been really disheartening to see the “new” paint so badly beaten. But the repairs turned out well, and we took advantage of the opportunity to put the last topcoat on the mahogany toe rail….something about making lemonaid when life gives you lemons.

First, the guys sanded and taped off the windshield frame

The broken PVC pipes had abraded through the clear coat

Prepped and ready to spray the following morning

It was extremely hot when all of this was going on, so  hot that spraying any time after 10am was simply not possible. So the crew would do all of the prep work, then show up the next morning, wipe down, tack off, suit up, and spray.

Problem: humidity causes the tape to loosen up overnight

The last thing we need is to have black metallic paint find its way past the tape.

And keep in mind from the last article that the insurance company’s estimate from Osprey Marine called for only using five rolls of tape for the whole repair!

Windshield is done, next up is the cabin top

Two gouges

Taped off and ready to spray

Nonskid is done

Nonskid is nasty stuff. It goes EVERYWHERE when you spray. Once it was done, the crew pulled all the plastic and retaped the boat for shiny Awlcraft 2000 Matterhorn White.

While they’re at it…

The mahogany toe rail had been sprayed before, but the plan was to do it one more time before splashing the boat. Since the boat is completely covered, and the cabin top is sufficiently far away from the toe rail that one sheet of plastic film can cover it easily, we sanded and sprayed the toe rail first. This wasn’t part of the storm damage, but when an opportunity presents itself…

That turned out nicely

After taping off the toe rail, they sprayed the cabin top

Done!

Off comes the plastic (hopefully, for the last time!)

Nice!

That toe rail is like a mirror

10 coats of DuPont MS1 topped by 3 coats of Awlcraft 2000 clear

So that’s a wrap for the Nor’easter damage repair and clear coat on the toe rail. Now I’ve got to transform Tent Model XXX back to the more compact version. There’s nonskid overspray all over the interior surface of the shrink wrap skin, so I need to be very careful as I peel it off.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Re-skinning Tent Model XXX (for the last time?)

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Final Coats of MS1 Clear Coat on the Toe Rail

We finally got a break from the roasting hot summer in the tent, so my painter showed up with a helper and covered the boat, taped off the mahogany toe rail, and sprayed what should have been the last coats of Imron MS1 clear coat.

Sharkskin plastic and a lot of 3M 233+ tape cover the boat

The (reportedly) good thing about MS1 clearcoat is that with eight coats sprayed in two sessions, it needs no maintenance for five years even in the brutally hot sun of southern Florida. Spraying can also produce a very flat surface with terrific shine. But it takes a lot of work to get ready to spray.

Sanded with 320 grit and ready for the final top coat

Ready to start spraying

Next day…looks pretty good

As I walked around the scaffolding, I noticed a lot of junk in the MS1. At the bow, I noticed that the painter hadn’t switched the air line to the filtered supply. There’s a small filter/bulk water separator before the refrigerated air drier. But I have a Tee in the air line, with a valve that controls air to two outlets, one of which has a big Devilbiss filter/drier. The filters are expensive, so we only use that side for painting. The other outlet is used for air tools and blowing things off. But even though I positioned the supply panel with the filter up on the scaffolding, the painter didn’t switch the supply to the filtered side. I’m pretty sure the little bits of junk in the MS1 came through the air line. There are also a few spots where the paint gun dripped. And I found four pinholes (roughly 1mm diameter) that appear to go all the way to the wood.

This is frustrating. It’s expensive to pay a professional crew to come in and spray. I can’t understand how they didn’t see the pinholes when they were sanding and taping off the toe rail. Swapping the air line is something the painter has done many times since we sprayed the boat with Awlgrip. He knows what he’s supposed to do, he just got careless and forgot. And now I’ve got junk in the clearcoat. The drips could be sanded and polished, but with the pinholes scattered around the toe rail, he’ll have to sand and spray once more.

It’s always something.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Back to the V-berth Cabinetry

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Recycling the Original Mahogany Toe Rails

While waiting for my painter’s schedule to synch with mine so we can clear coat the pile of mahogany plywood panels that have been sitting since March 2017, I’ve been working on other stuff. One of the most frustrating things is that I seem to have lost one of the standpipes for the raw water cooling intakes for my Cummins 6CTA engines. I’ve been turning my garage upside down and rooting through the boat and tent but haven’t had any luck finding it. While digging through the mahogany lumber pile, I decided it was time to do something with the original mahogany toe rails. I saved them when we first disassembled the boat so they could be used as patterns for the new toe rails., but that work has been done for a while. Now they’re just taking up space and getting in my way. Time to fire up the saw and make some cleats.

EZ-One track saw will cut a perfectly straight line on the curved mahogany

Line the track up to minimize waste

Trued up edge is ready for the table saw

One section of toe rail repurposed into cleats

Repurposed 50-year old mahogany toe rails

I’ll use these cleats to secure the new wall panels and cabinets as I build out the interior. In fact, I used one of them when I installed the back wall in the laundry closet.

Old “Chris Craft grade” mahogany is still pretty stuff.

Ever seen cracks like this in old toe rails?

Ever wonder how deep the cracks go?

Turns out it’s pretty deep.

Amazingly enough, even with a crack going all the way through the board the mahogany was pretty rock-solid. In other spots, especially around the stanchion bases, where water can pool in the pocket under the base, the wood was punky. That’s why I completely epoxy sealed all of the stanchion base holes in the new toe rail. It’s time consuming doing it this way, but hopefully I’ll never have to deal with rot.

One coat of Zinzer primer/sealer on two edges

Most of the cabinetry I’m doing involves gluing joints with epoxy thickened with wood flour or gluing and screwing. All of those joints will tend to be 90° angles, so I only sealed the two edges of the cleats that won’t be sealed by epoxy. Around the time the primer dried on the cleats, I got a message from my painter: he finally got a break in his schedule and can come over and spray. Time to get the origami spray booth set up again.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Spraying Mahogany Panels with ICA Base Coat Clear

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Drilling and Epoxying Stanchion Screw Holes

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.

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

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Off Comes the Plastic (AKA the Paint Job is Done)!

I recently made some changes to the navigation on this site to make it easier to find articles. The new article index has every one listed in chronological order. When I look at the titles of the articles I’ve written recently, with so many of them focused on windows, portholes and glass instead of epoxy, fairing or sanding, it’s pretty clear the body and paint work part of the refit is coming to a close. The cabin top, hull and decks were sprayed over the summer of 2013, as was the mahogany toe rail (the first time around). The blue accent stripes have been painted for weeks. The only thing left to bring closure to the exterior paint job is to spray the final coats of Imron MS1 on the toe rail and take off all of the tape and masking film, which is precisely what we did last weekend, in mid-November 2013.

New mahogany toe rail sanded and ready for the final coats of Imron MS1

We went through a total of three cases of 2″ 3M 233+ tape on this paint job. If I never see another roll, it will be too soon!

Sanded, taped, wiped, tacked off and ready to spray

The Boatamalan painter sprayed on Saturday, then we all went home. I returned the following morning to pull all of the tape and hand masking film. Some of it had been on the boat for almost a month, since we painted the hull in Awlcraft 2000 Matterhorn White.

Et voila!

Without further ado…off came the plastic!

The helm station view hasn’t changed much since we painted the dashboard and cabin top

The side deck view looks pretty much the same as when we did the nonskid

Even the bow hasn’t changed all that much

But it sure is nice to see all of the bits uncovered at the same time.

Tinted bow seat windows look pretty good

I’m still working with the manufacturer on some issues with these windows, so they’re just dry fit here. Still, I like the way they turned out and the effect the tinted windows have against the white cabin top.

Need to install the bow seat hatches…soon

Dropping down off the bow, we can finally see the whole paint job…sorta. The tent limits how much you can see at any one time.

Nice stripe!

Wild shot looking up from ground level

The mirror-like reflection of the tent frames and walls in the new Awlgrip 2000, coupled with the upper accent stripe and boot stripe plus the chine as it goes forward to the stem yielded a mind-bending result through the camera lens when I put it on forced flash.

Red, white & blue seems appropriate for an American classic

Yes, that reflected paint can does say Awlgrip!

Again, props to the Boatamalan for flowing out the paint so well.

Shiny!

Somebody opened the door of the tent while I was pulling all of the plastic. He commented that it didn’t look like any metal boat he’d ever seen.

I agree. 🙂

Dang wire from the tent got in the way of this otherwise excellent shot!

Stbd side looks good, too

Tinted windows really finish the look

Yeah, baby 🙂

That’s a mound of masking tape and film

It took the better part of six hours to pull it all, and at the end of the day the pile was high. I’ll be getting my money’s worth in dry slip fees this month just in garbage disposal alone! lol

That’s basically a wrap for the paint work. Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Polishing the Stainless Rub Rails.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Painting the Stripes

With winter rapidly approaching, we’re in a race with Mother Nature to get the paint work done. We painted Awlcraft 2000 on the cabin top, decks, and aft enclosure during the summer, and the hull got “the shiny” as autumn 2013 settled into the area.  The only exterior paint work left to do are the accent stripes on the hull and the final coats of Imron MS1 High Gloss Clear on the mahogany toe rail. Last weekend, we got the blue stripes done.

The pictures we took when we first got the Roamer back in late 2007 were not especially helpful as a guide to what the stripes should look like now because the boat had been completely repainted some time in the early 1980s. The lines on the upper stripe, in particular, went up and down over the length of the boat and didn’t widen at the bow the way they should. We also looked at other Roamer 46 pictures, but it’s difficult to know where the proper lines should be since all of the boats seem to be slightly different.

I asked the stripe guru from Weaver Boatworks to come over, but the perfectly straight lines they use at Weaver didn’t work. The Weaver boats have no portholes in the hulls that they have to follow, so they can make their lines perfectly straight along any orientation the owners want. We have to make our stripe wide enough to cover all  of the portholes along the hull sides and the engine vents, too. But none of the rectangular porthole openings are perfectly aligned, and the ER vents and the forward round portholes are a different height than the rectangular ones. When the striping guru made perfectly straight lines that just covered the aft stateroom windows and ER vents, which is what all of the pictures of Roamer 46s look like, the lower lines went through the middle of the round port holes at the front of the boat. And when he made them wide enough to cover the round ports forward and rectangular ones all along the hull sides, the stripes were ridiculously wide aft!

So much for using perfectly straight lines on an old aluminum Chris Craft production boat…

After ripping down the fine-line tape twice(!), the stripe guru focused on the boot stripe while I eyeballed the upper stripe and just got ‘er done.

Taping off the stripes

Once the stripes were taped off, we machine sanded the large areas using Mirka Abranet 320, taking care to avoid corners and the fine line tape. Then we went back and hand sanded all of the shiny spots right up to the tape line.

Taping the ER vents from the inside

Hand masking film goes on next to protect the new Alwcraft 2000 Matterhorn White

These boats originally had a “shadow box” paint layout for the stern, with the inset part of the transom and portholes the same color as the accent and boot stripe. Because this is an aluminum boat and there is no lazarette separating the transom from the aft stateroom, I felt a large area of dark painted exterior would add too much unwanted heat to the interior of the boat. So we’re only putting color on the transom at the boot stripe.

With the Matterhorn White protected, next we turned Tent Model IX (the best tent ever!) into a spray booth again.

Taped off, wiped down, tacked off, and ready to spray

This boat originally had dark green stripes, but we prefer blue. So we mixed up some Awlcraft 2000 Navy Blue, fired up the compressor and refrigerated air drier and suited up. The results were freakin’ outstanding, if I do say so myself.

Props to the Boatamalan* painter!

*Boatamalan: portmanteau indicating highly skilled boat workers of Central American origin. They’re actually from Honduras, but boat + [Guat]amalan has a nicer ring to it.

Talk about nice flow!

The fuzzy, spotty reflection is actually a mirror-like reflection of the translucent hand masking film covering the tent frames and very dirty exterior tent material.

No runs, even at the ER vent gills.

The blue line widens at the bow and covers both porthole openings

Pix don’t capture the shiny as well as the eye can, but this stuff is like a mirror!

Man, am I glad the exterior tent isn’t see-through. When I was walking around taking the pix, I was doin’ a happy dance all around the scaffolding! 🙂

Shiny!

I stopped dead with the happy dance though, when I turned toward the bow and saw the reflection in the pic below.

You can read the small print on the Sharkskin label in the reflection!

The picture doesn’t capture it entirely, but I hope you get the idea…seriously, the chief Boatamalan has absolutely mad skills when it comes to flowing out Awlgrip paint. And once again, he said the job is much cleaner than what they normally get on paint jobs at Weaver Boatworks, where the whole shop is full of flying dust and they can’t stop working for a day so the floating particles can settle out before spraying.

We’ll leave the plastic up for a week so we don’t have to re-tape when we spray the final coats of MS1 on the toe rail. Then that’s a wrap for the big paint work.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Propeller Shafts

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Re-bunging the Mahogany Toe Rail

I think the name of this boat should be “Three steps forward, one step back.”

Over the summer of 2013, we sprayed “the shiny” on the hardtop, the cabin top, the helm dashboard, and the aft enclosure; the non-skid was done, too. Before painting the shiny Matterhorn White Awlcraft 2000, the Boatamalan painter had already sprayed the mahogany toe rail with eight coats of Imron MS1 High Gloss Clear. The last step to finish the shiny paintwork from the rub rail up was to sand the mahogany toe rail perfectly flat with 320 grit Mirka Abranet and spray the final 2~3 coats of MS1. But when I pulled the protective plastic from the toe rail after the Awlgrip spraying was done, it became apparent there was a problem: The bungs that cover the 1/4-20 machine screws that mechanically fasten the mahogany to the deck needed to be replaced.

My instructions to the woodworker who put the bungs in were explicit: make sure the glue line is solid. If there’s any gap in the glue line, water will eventually wick in and cause trouble in the mahogany and maybe even the aluminum below.

But when the woodworker was done, epoxy didn’t fill the joint all the way to the top. With regular varnish, you can keep pushing it into the bungs until they finally fill up. But no matter how much the painter flowed out the MS1 while spraying the initial coats, it simply wouldn’t fill the space between the bungs and the holes into which they were driven. I recently figured out the reason why: the woodworker had only fully wetted 5 bungs with epoxy out of the 198 bungs in the rail. The rest were mostly held in place by friction. All of the those had to be replaced or the MS1 would fail in no time.

It looked pretty good from the top.

But when you looked closer, the circles around the bungs became more apparent.

White circles around each bung are from dust catching in deep crevices

We saw the rings around the bungs when the MS1 cured on the rail but thought that we could simply fill the void by applying MS1 to the gaps with a syringe. Then we’d sand it flat and spray the last coats of MS1.  But the more I thought about it, the more concerned I became that maybe the woodworker hadn’t used enough epoxy to wet out the bungs and the holes they were going into before driving the bungs home. I confirmed this concern when I pushed on a bung and it slid down into the hole! Upon removal, we found zero evidence of any glue at all! Temperature changes would have popped the bungs over time, and water would have found its way into the toe rail mahogany to cause rot and the aluminum below it, creating aluminum oxide that would push the paint off.

Out came the bungs!

This stuff is disheartening. The woodworker who did this joins the list of highly paid clowns (with great references!) whose work has to be redone.

All of the holes must be precisely drilled.

It is much more difficult to remove bungs and replace them and have it look right than it is to simply do it right the first time.

Two good bungs! Yea!!

Removing and replacing the bungs took three days, but because I can only work on weekends that translates to two weeks. 😦

Resprayed with MS1

The joy of seeing the shiny mahogany toe rail is lost a bit by the fact that it had to be done twice. All you can do is sigh and move on.

Absolutely, perfectly mirror smooth

Done

With all surfaces above the rub rail now painted and done, the only thing left paint-wise is to do the final longboarding on the hull, prime with Awlgrip 545, final sand and shoot.

Next up on our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Exhaust

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: “The Shiny” Out to the Rub Rail

With the exterior from the decks up painted with “the shiny” the next steps involves painting the fillet outboard of the mahogany toe rail to the upper rub rail. The hull at the bow is about eight feet tall, so without mid-height scaffolding it’s impossible to see over the upper rub rail to paint. But mid-height scaffolding  would get in the way of painting the lower portions of the hull, so we have to break this up into two parts…it’s always something.

Anyway, we sanded the Alwgrip 545 primer on the fillet and rub rail with 320 grit Mirka Abranet, then wiped everything down and taped it off for “the shiny,” which is what my Boatamalan painter calls shiny top coat paint.

The mahogany toe rail was still taped off from the earlier paint work.

The shiny, the non-skid and the bright toe rail really look good!

Nice knot.

We taped off the toe rail using 3M 233+ tape and Sharkskin 20-foot wide masking film.

Almost ready for paint.

It’s important to keep the plastic tensioned so it doesn’t flop around and stir up dust when the painter comes by shooting the top coat. But, you have to be careful not to put too much tension on it…the Sharkskin tears easily.

Done!

We used 3M foam tape for the blend area at the scupper, then wetted down the scaffolding and got to painting. Once again, Tent Model IX provided a nice, nearly dust-free environment. That’s a wrap for the upper paint work. All that remains is to longboard the hull once more, apply a bit of primer to some low spots, then we’ll put shiny on the hull!

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Re-bunging the Mahogany Toe Rail

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Refinishing the Mahogany Safety Rail

Back when we started this refit in late 2007, one of the things that got me hooked on this Roamer was the fact that most all the original bits and pieces were there. The boat had been on the hard since the mid-1980s, which meant it only had about 15 years or less of actual use. Unlike many Chris Crafts, which came with vinyl-coated stainless safety lines on the side decks, this one came with mahogany hand rails all the way forward. Of course, the mahogany wasn’t cared for the entire time it was in the boatyard, and the varnish had long-since gone away. But the rails themselves were in very good condition. The grain had opened up a bit and the surface had oxidized to grey, but otherwise they were in good shape. Fast forward to August 2013, and we finally made them pretty again.

40 year-old Chris Craft mahogany

The mahogany mast and safety rails got a good sanding before we ran them over to a nearby shop. The mahogany is rock hard, old stock. It took quite a bit of sanding but eventually cleaned up well.

After sanding, we generously applied West System epoxy.

The grain had opened up a lot, and some of the cracks were pretty deep. To bind it all together again and give a smooth surface for the final top coat — Imron MS1 high gloss clear — we mixed up some West System 105 epoxy and 207 Special Clear Hardener. The natural color of the wood is very nice, so we didn’t use any stains.

Brush-applied West System is very shiny.

Filling all of the cracks took three heavy coats of West. We’ll sand it flat later and spray two coats of the high gloss clear. Even with just West System on it, the wood is beautiful. It cleaned up really well.

12:1 scarf joints and very deep cracks in the grain.

Some folks might prefer brand new wood everywhere, since that’s what we did for the mahogany toe rail, but I like the character of this old wood. Compared to what we started with, they’ve come back quite nicely, I think.

Circa December 2007

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit:  Final Awl Grip 545 Primer on the Aft Enclosure

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The Mahogany Toe Rail

With shiny paint on the hardtop and the cabin top longboarded, I thought Awl Grip 545 on the cabin top was the next step, followed by more shiny paint. So I was surprised when my painter told me that the next step was to get the mahogany toe rail installed. Since my painter’s day job involves making Weaver Boatworks’ multi-million dollar sportfishermen beautiful, I tend not to challenge his judgement. But putting the toe rail on before the paint just seemed…wrong.

It turns out that at Weaver they don’t use bedding compounds to seal their teak toe rails to the deck. Instead, they make them on the shop floor with long scarf joints that are epoxied together. For an 80 foot boat, that’s a lot of toe rail. Once the rails (one for each side) are done, they coat the bottom side with epoxy twice and allow it to soak in. Then, 15-20 employees lift in unison and hoist the rails onto the boat. In preparation for installation, they also apply a coat of epoxy thickened with wood flour as a bonding agent to the deck where the toe rail will be installed. They lower the rails onto the epoxy adhesive, then use hundreds of clamps to press the rails to the deck. Here’s why this is a slick approach:

• There are no fasteners penetrating either the rail or the deck.
• No fasteners means no bungs, which new boat owners apparently think are unsightly.
• Unlike bedding compounds and sealants, epoxy is forever.
• If you ever needed to replace a section of the rail, just cut it out with a saw, chisel and grinder rather than wrestling with rubbery goo.

Since our Roamer is an aluminum boat, we’re not concerned about deck cores rotting out from water intrusion. But a lot of corrosion can happen in the joint between the toe rail and the deck. In fact, the worst corrosion on this boat back when we found it was under the toe rail. I decided the epoxy approach was good, so we’ll use it. But unlike Weaver’s customers, I think bungs in mahogany are a necessity on a proper classic Chris Craft.

But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.

First, I dug the original toe rails out of the wood shop and laid them in position.

I used 2×4 scraps to keep the rails off the deck, since the underside was still coated with the original butyl tape caulking Chris Craft used and that stuff makes a sticky mess.

The rails were rotted out completely where there used to be teak side decks.

When the joint between the old teak side decks failed, water would wick down and destroy cabinetry inside the boat as well as the toe rail on the outside. Our new aluminum plate side decks should keep that from ever happening again.

Fortunately, all of the pieces were there and they still fit very well.

All of the screw holes still line up.

These old pieces will make great patterns.

Again on the starboard side, the rot was worst toward the aft section of the boat where the teak side decks used to be.

Another weak spot in the original execution: unsealed vent holes.

I like the stainless steel scoop vents that Chris Craft installed over these holes, but they could have done a better job sealing the wood after cutting them in the mahogany.

After test fitting all of the old pieces, next I pulled the African mahogany planks out from under the boat

Reserved 4 cap, indeed.

14-inch wide 8/4 mahogany boards are required, especially at the bow where the rails take a turn.

With the originals as patterns, cutting the rails didn’t take long.

Chris Craft used a 1:1 (45*) vertical scarf between the rail pieces and the joints tended to fail because the joint was less than two inches long. They also didn’t use epoxy for glue. This would let water inside the seam, where it would rot the wood and cause corrosion in the aluminum under the rail. We’re doing it the Weaver way, with long diagonal scarfs in the horizontal plane of the rail.

In no time, the rails were rough cut.

First one, then another…

…and another, then another…

…all the way around…

…to the other side…

And with that, all of the rail pieces were rough cut. But they were still 8/4 boards, which are about 2-1/8 inches thick. The originals were 1-1/2 inches thick from the factory. I plan on never replacing these again, so I decided 1-3/4 inches is a good final thickness. We took them over to the shop and resawed the rails down to the final thickness, plus a bit for final sanding.

The toe rails are cut, shaped and resawn.

They’ll sit under the boat until we prime the decks, which has to happen before the rails can be epoxied in place.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Prepping the Aft Enclosure for Primer.