1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Porthole Gaskets

Way back in 2013, I disassembled all of the hateful aft stateroom portholes.

OEM gaskets get hard over time

By late 2014 they were back from the paint shop looking very pretty, but it wasn’t until 2016 that I had new glass and screens in them. The last thing I need to wrap up the portholes is gaskets. There are several gasket options that are readily available, and each one has it’s plus and minus points.

WEFCO Square Hollow Rubber Gasket is $1.69 per foot, and I need around 60 feet to do all of the portholes. That’s a relatively  cheap option, but it’s got two downsides: ethylene propylene rubber is a relatively hard material at 65 to 80 durometer on the Shore A hardness scale. This particular gasket is squishy because it’s hollow in the middle, just like the OEM gasket. I suspect it would also get hard over time just like the OEM gasket. The other downside is that there would be four joints in each porthole gasket, and that’s four opportunities to leak.

Then there’s Stop Water Gasket, which offers very nice urethane rubber one-piece gaskets for each style of OEM Chris Craft hatch and porthole. They claim that their urethane is softer than the original gasket material, which is good, but at $41 each it’s a pretty expensive option.

Hardness chart courtesy of Ecoflex

So–and this will come as a total shock, I’m sure–I started looking into making gaskets myself using super soft silicone. I eventually settled on Ecoflex 00-50 platinum-catalyzed silicone. As you can see in the chart above, Shore 00-50 is very soft material. And Silicone retains its its original shape and hardness pretty much forever. So I ordered a 2-gallon kit and set about making the mold while waiting for the silicone to arrive.

2×4 scraps should work for the mold

A few passes over my jointer trued the lumber

Mini Max FS35 jointer leaves a very nice surface on the wood

A super flat surface on the lumber will help ensure the mold is a consistent depth, so the gaskets will have consistent height.

Next I measured the portholes

I sampled several of the portholes. The biggest gap that needs to be filled by the gasket is 5/16″. The stock gasket is 3/8″, which should be fine, but because the silicone is so soft, I’ll add 1/32″ to the mold depth. That should help ensure these things never leak.

3/8″ width will be perfect

Next, I cut all of the lumber to the same width

The first mold cut

Cut 2 makes the width 13/32″

Harbor Freight featherboard was a great buy

If you use a tablesaw, you should have a fingerboard. You can’t buy replacement fingers for $6.99.

Second pass is done

The last pass on the saw

Looks pretty good, but I need to clean up the bottom surface

3/8″ router bit in my ShopSmith cleans up the cuts

Next I varnished the lumber to seal the wood up and then cut the miters at 45°. I used US Composites 635 epoxy to saturate the joint area, then added wood flour to make glue.

Crazy clamps

While I was clamping it all together, it occurred to me that corner clamps would make this a lot easier. Then again, I don’t do this for a living, so I’m not sure I need to buy tools I rarely use. Then again…more tools…mmmmm.

By the time the epoxy cures I expect the silicone will have arrived.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Porthole Gaskets II

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Wrapping Up the AC Circuit Panels

I shifted from doing cabinetry in the aft HVAC closet to focusing on electrical. My Boatamalan painter says the headliner has to be installed before he can spray the ICA clear top coat on the salon and V-berth mahogany. But before the headliner can be installed, I have to do all of the wiring. Most of that will involve running 12vdc lighting circuits and speaker wires, plus installing the plywood bases that the speakers and lights will attach to. Before I get to that, I want to wrap up some 240/120vac stuff.

The main power panel

I like the look of that tinted epoxy.

New ammeter donuts

My old Constellation 52 had ammeters so you could monitor power consumption and make sure loads were balanced. This Roamer only came with a voltmeter, but I plan to install NOS ammeters that match the voltmeter. For now, I’m just installing the donut current transformers on both hot legs and running the wiring up to where the ammeters will be installed. I’ll put the gauges in later, after the sanding and painting is done.

The OEM bilge pump plate and switches sure look nice

The original screws that attach the plate to the panel were deteriorated chromed bronze. I decided to replace them with stainless, so I ordered a bag of 250 #4 3/8″ oval head screws since the same ones are used on all of the OEM cabinet hinges and other hardware. But when I went to install them, I discovered that #4 is too big! Turns out Chris Craft used #3.5 screws! I haven’t been able to find a source for stainless screws in that size. If anybody knows where to find them, please leave a comment and let me know!

Tangled mess

In preparation for powering up the 12vdc breaker panel, I opened up the salon cabinet service chase. Though it looks like a tangled up mess of wires in there, the permanent wiring for the boat is actually well secured and organized. The messy wiring is for the various passive infrared alarm sensors I installed after the rat bastard thieves cleaned me out back in 2014.

Speaking of which, my insurance company, Chubb, has informed me that they’ll not be renewing my policy. Apparently, one claim for the burglary and another for the Nor’Easter damage earlier this year was too much. So now, on top of the usual complications of a busy life, I’m shopping around for boat insurance.

Tracking down a wire gives me a chance to clean some hidden sandblasting residue

Wrapping up the aft AC circuit panel

NOS fuel line makes good chafe protection

I’ve had this 1/4″ ID fuel line for a long time. It’s old enough that I wouldn’t use it in a fuel system, but it comes in handy as chafe protection.

That’s better than a sharp metal edge

Prepped for epoxy and insulation

US Composites 635 epoxy is good stuff

Apply epoxy, then staple the Buffalo Batt insulation in place

Not bad!

Long as I’m in here…

Might as well install the PEX water lines for the washing machine

I’ll finish this install later

Confounded by an ebay seller

Because this is an aluminum boat and aluminum loses to copper when they come together in damp environments, I’ve been trying to eliminate as much exposed copper as I can during this refit. Water condensing on copper or bronze, then dripping off into the bilge can carry copper ions that can attack the hull. So instead of using bronze PEX fittings, I thought I’d try plastic ones that were advertised on ebay. Turns out the plastic ones are for a different, older type of PEX. They don’t work with what I’m using. So the water line install will have to wait until I order more proper PEX fittings.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Powering Up the 12VDC Breaker Panel.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Painting Panels in the Laundry Closet

I’ve been thinking about changing platform and starting a Youtube channel. This blog started as a boating forum post way back in late 2007. After the paperwork SNAFU got cleared up in late 2012, I transferred the content to WordPress and started blogging. Like the refit itself, the blogging has been a labor of love so far. But I’ve been thinking it’d be nice if there was some return on the time investment, and Youtube looks like a better monetizing option than a WordPress blog.

There are risks to changing the platform. The time commitment for a Youtube vlog could be a lot more than a photo journal blog. And after the rat bastard thieves burglarized the tent a few years ago, I’ve been very careful taking pictures so I don’t show where the motion sensors for the alarms and surveillance cameras are located. Also, pix don’t show the layout of the boat.  In a video format, I might be giving potential thieves the advantage of knowing the exact layout of the boat and where all of the goodies are located. It’s also entirely possible that I will suck as a Youtuber. lol Seriously though, I try to keep the blog tightly focused on the specific project I’m working on. With Youtube, the presenter’s style seems to be as important (if not more so) than the actual topic of a particular video. I don’t have a video presenter style…I’ve never needed or wanted one. If anybody has thoughts on this or experience with monetized Youtube channels, please comment below.

With that said, I got the walls and floor of the laundry closet painted.

First, I mixed up some brown-tinted US Composites 150 series epoxy

The 150 series epoxy is more viscous than their 635 version, and it’s specifically intended for coating. The missus said she wants brown walls and floor, but she wants a white back panel, so that’s what she’s getting.

Before

After

That lays on pretty well for one heavy coat

The next day, I mixed up some white epoxy and coated the back wall.

Nice!

The reason I’m using epoxy here is that it’s the fastest way to coat panels. I’ve also seen how poorly plywood coatings hold up when only primers and paint are used. Unlike epoxy, which soaks in and binds the grain in a plastic matrix, primers and paint don’t hold together as well, and eventually the grain breaks the coating. I never, ever want to have to touch this again, so epoxy is the way to go. The only weakness for epoxy is that it doesn’t do well in sunlight. But in this laundry closet, there will be very little sunlight. I think the epoxy will do just fine.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The Final Panel In the Laundry Closet

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: More Progress in the Laundry Closet

I have been super busy recently…even more than usual. But I’m still making progress on the Roamer. After fitting and insulating the ceiling panel for the laundry closet, next I made the dryer vent box for the rear panel and then painted everything with white-pigmented epoxy.

Making the dryer vent box

I need to put a box in the back wall of the laundry closet to make space for the dryer vent duct to go up to the porthole, where it will exit the boat.

The Kreg pocket screw jig helps with the last step for the bottom panel

The vent box and ceiling panel are ready for epoxy coating

White-tinted US Composites 1:1 ratio epoxy

Nice!

Next day, the epoxy is fully cured

Glue, screw, and clamp the box together

Next day, the box gets the Buffalo Batt non-woven fabric insulation treatment

Once the epoxy cures, it’s ready to install

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing Panels in the Laundry Closet

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The Starboard Salon Aft Bilge Vent Duct II

Slowly but surely, I’m getting closer to having the Roamer weatherproofed. There are eight bilge vents that exhaust through the mahogany toe rail. Three of the vent ducts are done in the salon, and I’m getting close to finishing the last one there.

The duct box is glued and screwed together

I just need to sand down the OEM sealing coat on the mahogany and it’ll be ready for fiberglass.

Fully saturate the interior and all exposed edges with epoxy

It’s always amazing to me how much resin these things soak up. Next…you guessed it…

Fillets!

I do love my fillets.

Next, I laid on the fiberglass cloth and rolled out the bubbles

I also sealed the duct face panel with a heavy coat of epoxy

Leave it and come back the next day

Next morning, trim off the excess fiberglass overhanging the edges

Not a bad looking vent duct

I decided to seal up the exterior surfaces of the duct with white tinted US Composites 635 epoxy. I’m using the 2:1, no-blush hardener for all of this. Even during the roasting hot summer, it’s got a pretty long pot life and it cures by the following morning.

I do like a heavy coat of that tinted epoxy

For places that have zero UV exposure, epoxy as a sealant and tinted top coat is a good approach.

Next day, I put a coat on the duct wall and another one on the electrical panel

That sure did turn out nice

With sticky epoxy in the salon, I got to work on some things in the V-berth. It’s been a while since I was in there, and I look forward to wrapping that room up.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Starboard Salon Aft Bilge Vent Duct

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Cutting and Fitting More Starboard Salon Plywood Panels

Repairs from the big Nor’easter are proceeding apace, with several hiccups being tossed in the mix by the surveyor and insurance company, which hasn’t paid the claim yet. There’s a narrow weather window for painting the boat between freezing early spring and roasting hot late spring/summer, so I’ve had to self-fund the repairs to get them done during that window. Fortunately, we’ve had a longer stretch of relatively cool weather than usual, with plenty of days where the temps don’t go above 70°F, and the repairs are going well. All this effort just to get back to where I was before the big storm came…it’s discouraging. Anyway, I’ll post pix of the repairs before long.

While all of that’s been going on, I’ve been continuing the work of sealing up the starboard cabinetry in the salon.

Inside the starboard salon cabinetry

I’m trying to make sure there’s an insulated envelope inside the boat so it will be more comfortable and energy efficient in summer and winter. I’m doing that by insulating the backside of each plywood panel that faces the hull and making sure that none of the hull or decks are exposed to the air-conditioned interior space. So I need to install ceiling panels here under the side deck, just like I did on the port side. On the inboard side, the original cabinetry offers a good landing spot for a ceiling panel, but there’s nothing on the outboard side. I already installed one short panel above the ER main air vent, which you can see in the pic above, that will serve as the wall to which the ceiling panel attaches. Next I cut another short, upright panel from a bulkhead scrap panel I saved when we were doing demolition a decade ago when the refit began.

Old-school marine plywood

It’s a dirty old panel, but the wood is in great shape.

Marine-grade Douglas fir was a lot different 50 years ago than it is today

Glued and pocket screwed in place

I’ll coat it with tinted epoxy when the job is done.

Mahogany cleat recycled from the original toe rail

Back-side of the ceiling panel gets wetted out with epoxy

Buffalo Batt insulation adds R3 insulation value to the panel

Mahogany cleat is glued and screwed in place

Et voila! Good fit!

The next step here will involve removing the ceiling panel and sealing the face with epoxy before finally installing it. I have more ceiling panels to make in here, but I first need to make a new aft bilge vent duct and wall panel to attach them to.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The Starboard Salon Aft Bilge Vent Duct

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Refurbing the Original Electric Panel II

The face of the original electric panel turned out very nice with that white tinted epoxy. I was tempted not to mess with the backside, since it’s epoxy sealed and will rarely be seen. But when I ordered the white tint and thick, 150 series epoxy resin and hardener from US Composites, I also ordered their brown colorant specifically for areas like this.

Sanded, taped off, and ready for epoxy

That 150 series epoxy really flows out nicely

Great reflection

The port side under-deck panels got coated, too

These Douglas fir panels will be buried behind the built-in settee I’ll build someday, so appearance isn’t a concern. But I think I like the uniform brown better than seeing the unattractive Doug fir grain. In retrospect, a dash of white colorant to lighten up the brown might have been better.

Next day, the tape came off

Good lookin’ panel!

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Cutting and Fitting More Starboard Salon Plywood Panels

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Refurbing the Original Electric Panel

I’m still working on waterproofing the starboard side of the salon, which has involved remaking a bilge vent duct and fiberglassing the main engine room air inlet duct panel. To gain access there, I removed the original electrical panel and did some repairs to it. Next I sealed it up with white-tinted epoxy.

Back side of the electric panel has been sealed with epoxy

Mahogany sticks were epoxied into the hinge screw holes

Two of the six hinge screws had stripped out the plywood, in part because the two pieces of plywood weren’t epoxied together and the screws were right at the joint between the two panels. I epoxied the two panels together and put mahogany sticks into the screw holes, so the screws will have something solid to thread into.

Back side

With the back side sealed up (but ugly), I mixed up some US Composites 150 series thick epoxy resin and tinted it with their white colorant. I used this approach for the bed foundation in the V-berth, too. The epoxy is a tough coating that works great in places where it’s not exposed to direct sunlight. And the colorant allows me to end up with a shiny coating and sealant in one step…no primer, no additional sanding.

Not bad!

NOS ammeters look great!

The date on the label for these new/old stock Simpson ammeters says 10/62. A 1967 Chris Craft Constellation I used to own had an ammeter just like this in addition to the Simpson voltmeter, and I wanted them on the Roamer, too. I found them on ebay for a good price, and they’re a perfect match to the original voltmeter.

Nice!

The genset hour meter cleaned up well, too.

Bilge pump switches look nice all polished and waxed

Not bad!

I have to box up the meters and switches, flip the panel over, and apply a coat of the 150 series epoxy tinted brown on the backside.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Refurbing the Original Electric Panel II

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing Varnished Mahogany Panels in the Aft Salon Cabinet

I’ve been varnishing lots of 1/8″ mahogany plywood panels for the OEM cabinet interiors with Minwax Urethane Clear Gloss. They turned out pretty nice, and now it’s time to start installing them.

That’s a lot of varnished plywood pieces

Good thing I marked them on the back-side so I’d know where each one goes and its orientation. 😉

Next, I took a grinder to the OEM paint

That 50-year old paint was ugly, but it was also thick and still very well adhered to the plywood below. So instead of stripping it entirely, I roughed it up with 36 grit on a sanding pad, using a small disk on a grinder and then a multitool to get into the corners. Once it was all roughed up, I mixed up some US Composites blush-free epoxy and wetted out the cabinet interior and back of the mahogany panel. I’m using epoxy for this veneer work because it’s been my experience that contact cement just doesn’t do as good a job. The edges and corners of veneers attached using contact cement inevitably peel up years down the road. I want this bond to be permanent.

Once I’d wetted everything out, I mixed some wood flour into the epoxy and troweled on a bit more to act as the glue. Then I put all the pieces in place. After pressing the panels home, I went through with a squeegee to scrape off excess glue that squeezed out. Then I wiped down all of the joints with alcohol to remove any trace of epoxy residue.

Panels are in and clamped in place

Every stick is part of an essential clamp or pad to protect the varnish. I find that 1/8″ mahogany scraps are very useful for clamping interior pieces like these. They’re flexible, and can be bent into position then act like a spring to keep gentle pressure on the varnished panels.

The key at this point is to stop messing with it and just go home

Touching any of the pieces or even vibrations from walking around can cause the clamps to fail and fall. When one goes, it takes out all of them in the area. It’s best to just go home, let the epoxy cure, and come back the next day.

Et voila!

That turned out pretty good! Remember, this is what it looked like before:

I still have to make the fiddle for the leading edge of the shelf, and I need to cut a couple more panels to finish out this cabinet. But I think this was worth the effort.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing Varnished Mahogany Panels in the Forward Salon Cabinet

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Cutting and Fitting More Port Salon Panels

I am still waiting for the estimates to repair the damage from the recent Nor’easter. But that hasn’t stopped me from getting more panels fitted in the salon.

Outer wall panels are done. Next up: ceiling panels

I’m creating an air conditioned envelope inside the boat, with insulation on the back-side of each panel that faces the hull. The envelope wall panels on the port side of the salon and galley are installed. Now I need to put insulated ceiling panels in under the side deck.

It’s a boat…nothing is straight or square

First, I cut and fitted an angled mahogany cleat to the wall panel

That’s the underside of the side deck in the pic above.

Next, I measured the distance between the cleats at 6″ intervals

Next, I laid out the measured points on 1/8″ mahogany plywood

After connecting the dots, I set up the saw

Not a bad fit

Needs a bit of trimming

Near perfect fit

The cavity between the plywood and deck above

With the first ceiling panel fitted, I moved on to the next section at the engine room vent panel.

The panel isn’t quite tall enough

You can see that the angled mahogany cleat on the right side of the pic above is several inches higher than the top of the ER vent panel. I need to make some extension pieces with cleats for the next overhead panel to attach to.

I used scraps of 3/4″ Doug fir marine ply for the upright extensions

Then I added angled cleats

And another

Last step: saturate everything with epoxy

Once I have all of the overhead panels fitted, I’ll disassemble everything, varnish the plywood, insulate the backside, then reinstall. It’s a time-consuming approach, but I think the boat will be very comfortable in summer or winter once it’s done.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Fitting Still More Port Salon Panels