1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Aft Deck Mahogany Floor Boxes

The aft deck is coming together very nicely as more and more spray foam insulation gets covered by beautiful mahogany. I always knew I’d use mahogany plywood for the major wall panels, but for something like the last eight years, I’ve been pondering what to do about the transition from the walls to the original teak deck. Mahogany quarter round would work in places where the plywood panels directly contact the teak deck. But toward the aft end of the deck, the plywood comes down to contact painted aluminum where the original mahogany toe rail used to be. There’s a 3-1/2″ gap of white painted aluminum before the teak deck begins. There are also holes drilled in the teak deck, where Chris Craft ran the original wiring for the windshield wipers and searchlight. Patching a hole would look goofy, and I don’t want to start replacing teak deck boards.

So…what I decided to do was use the leftover 5/8″ thick mahogany boards resawn from the aft stateroom fascia panels and make a couple of box structures. In addition to hiding holes in teak and unattractive panel transitions, I’ll also be able to use the boxes as wire chases to get 120v outlets to the aft deck.

Clearing space for a long mahogany box

The box will zig then zag here

And it’ll cover this unattractive painted aluminum here, at the aft end of the deck

There’s still tape stuck to the teak from the big paint job back in 2013. That stuff was a bear to remove!

5/8″ mahogany boards…meet Mr. Tablesaw

Time to lay out the box

Box panel one

The zig and zag joints got marked off

A few cuts on the miter saw, and the box wall started coming together

Once the walls were cut, I made the box tops

This is going to look good!

Unfortunately, the camera battery died after this shot, so I don’t have any pictures of the final fit-up or when I glued the boards together.

After final fitment and glue up, I rounded the box tops’ outside corner and cut holes for the electrical boxes

Electrical outlet box is cut

That’s a good looking zig zag box!

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Varnishing the Aft Deck Mahogany

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Top Coating the V-berth II

So…the painter came out, sanded, taped off, and resprayed the V-berth again because of the overspray problem I wrote about last week.

And…he botched it again. Nicely flowed out in some places, but dry as a popcorn fart in others. Not as bad as the first time, but still not good.

So he sanded, taped off, and resprayed the whole thing again, this time taping it off in sections. One of the good things about the ICA topcoat is that you can tape it off about 10 minutes after you spray, so long as you don’t use super sticky tape. Third time’s a charm.

Sanded with Mirka Abranet 320 grit

Almost ready for the final, final, FINAL topcoat

Once everything was cleaned up and taped off, I turned on the exhaust fan and left the painter to his craft.

Next day, my mood approaching the V-berth was somewhere between dread and trepidation

That’s more like it

It’s a small room, but spraying in sections solved the overspray problem

Peeling back layers of plastic and tape

The big reveal

Sorry for the dusty lens in the pic above. The V-berth does look good. And it’s got enough coats of varnish on it that I suspect I’ll never have to do it again!

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The Salon Entry Folding Door

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Varnishing the Aft Stateroom Entryway

I’ve got a lot of mahogany bits that need varnishing. That ICA polyurethane is stinky stuff, so I want to do a lot in one fell swoop.

Sanded and ready for ICA

First three coats turned out great!

Compared to the “before” version, it’s quite an improvement

The beam looks good, too

First coats on the aft stateroom head sliding door box look nice

V-berth moldings, hatch trim rings, and aft stateroom entryway mahogany bits look great when varnished

Nice!

Next day, sand and repeat

Sand with 220 grit Mirka Abranet

then apply three more coats of ICA

Looking very good

The next day, I installed the varnished mahogany door jamb.

Wetted out with US Composites 635 epoxy, then add dollops of wood flour-thickened epoxy

I applied epoxy to the bulkhead with a slight curve in it

And clamped the new door jamb in place

Leave it clamped in place and go home

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Aft Stateroom Headliner Installation II

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Mahogany Veneer on the Aft Stateroom Hatch Hole

The Whisper Wall headliner installer didn’t show up last weekend, but there’s plenty of other stuff for me to do to get the headliner installed. Like cranking out that beautiful mahogany aft stateroom hatch trim ring. But I can’t leave the hatch hole in nasty OEM white paint. And repainting it doesn’t seem right either. So…I figure I’ll use some mahogany veneer to make it pretty.

I’ve got two boxes of veneer in stock–one is rotary cut and pretty red, the other is quartersawn (ribbon stripe) and more brown. I think the rotary cut red will do the trick.

I had a couple of scrap ribbonstripe veneers that might have done it

The wood back in the aft stateroom has red hues. In the V-berth, it’s brown ribbonstripe. I also don’t want two seams in the veneer, since that doubles the chances of seam failure. This is a hatch, after all, and on nice days it’ll be open, and summer squalls can pop up quickly and get things wet. The fewer seams, the better.

4′ x 8′ rotary cut red mahogany veneer has been sitting in a closet for years

I’ll use contact cement in this application, not epoxy

The OEM paint is in surprisingly good condition…just needed a good sanding

Water never got in here and neither did much sunlight. So the OEM paint isn’t checked or otherwise distressed.

Veneer backing soaks up contact cement

Two coats of contact cement on the hatch hole

Et voila!

This was scary. If you’re doing it right, contact cement locks in tight on contact. Because I’m putting veneer on the inside of a tube, it had to be lined up just so at the beginning and maintained all the way around. If I was off a fraction of an inch in alignment at the start, it’d be a mile off four feet later. I got lucky! In retrospect, I should have cut the panel an inch or so wider. There would have been more waste, but I wouldn’t have had to be so precise with the alignment.

I used a razor knife to trim the excess veneer from the tube top and bottom, then slid the new trim ring up to see how it looks.

That’s going to look fabulous with the headliner installed

The veneer is trimmed and sanded with 240 grit Mirka Abranet

Time to break out that stinky ICA base coat clear varnish.

Three coats later…this turned out super nice!

The ICA added so much material to the inside diameter that the trim ring no longer fits easily. No problem, I’ll sand the OD of the trim ring down a bit when I do the final install, after the headliner is installed.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Mahogany Trim Ring for the V-berth Hatch

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Aft Stateroom Hatch Finish Panel

With the headliner installation started in the V-berth and the aft stateroom, there are some final bits and pieces that need to get done. Chris Craft originally used stainless sheet and aluminum moldings to cover the edge of the headliner where they stapled it to the plywood under the hatches. I decided to go with mahogany instead.

I forgot my camera the day before I took this shot

There was quite a bit of work that went into making that ring. I cut then jointed three pieces of mahogany, glued and clamped them, then traced and cut the circles. Next I need to make it fit the hatch hole.

That’s where it will go

The finish ring needs to stick out below the hatch opening ~3/16″. Any more than that and it won’t clear the sliding screen.

You can see where the OEM perforated headliner printed through onto the plywood

After a lot of work with a router and grinder…it fits up in the hole!

That’s going to look great, I think. But the white paint on the hatch hole…not so much. I think a nice piece of mahogany veneer will look great there.

Ready for three hot coats of ICA base clear varnish

To get it ready for varnish, I did a lot of sanding with 80 grit Abranet on my Mirka sander to get rid of the machine marks on the face. Then I hit it with 120 and 240 grit. Also, note the fancy painting jig to hold the ring in place.

That turned out pretty nice!

Mahogany porn

That joint could have been done better…

I wonder sometimes how the pros get seamless joints every time. I’m definitely hit or miss.

On the other side…Joint? What joint???

Three base coats down, three more to go

I’ve been brushing on the ICA recently. Since it’s catalyzed polyurethane, I can ‘hot coat’ without sanding after waiting ~20 minutes between coats. Depending on how hot it is in the tent, by the time I’m putting on the last coat the brush is getting pretty stiff. This stuff is definitely optimized for spray application. But since it’s only the base coat and I don’t have a spray booth on site, brushing is the best option.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Mahogany Veneer on the Aft Stateroom Hatch Hole

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: ICA Base Coat on the V-berth/Galley Bulkhead

The headliner tracks are getting installed, so I needed to get the last bare mahogany veneers on the V-berth/galley bulkhead varnished with ICA polyurethane base coat. If I’m doing the V-berth side, I might as well do the galley at the same time.

The mahogany veneer looks pretty good

It’s been protected with cardboard since I installed it back in December 2017. How time flies…

This part is mostly inside the galley cabinet

The big wall will mostly be covered by upper and lower galley cabinets

I used Mirka Abranet in 240 grit to prep the panels

The V-berth side of the bulkhead will get varnished, too

Once I’d sanded everything with 240, I blew dust out of the wood grain, vacuumed the area, wiped everything down with alcohol and a microfiber cloth, then got to mixing the ICA.

ICA 272 base coat, 1015 reducer, and 266 catalyst

This was a horrible mistake

DO NOT BUY 6001CN organic respirator filters!!!

I thought I was getting a good deal on some respirator filters advertised on ebay. They were listed as 6001, but it turns out they were the Chinese version. The 6001 filters I had on my respirator had been used and were long past their expiration date. But when I put on the respirator with the new 6001CN filters, a strange smell came through…and it was coming from the filters. I hadn’t mixed the ICA yet, and the salon didn’t have any chemical odors. These filters come from the factory smelling like chemicals. So I threw them out and used the old ones. Even though they were old, no smell came through. So…lesson learned. Only buy genuine 3m 6001 filters.

Three coats later…

I rolled and tipped it, but it was hot in the tent and I was working solo so it’s not as smooth as I’d like. But since it’s only the first base coat, that’s fine.

The V-berth looks good, too

It was hot enough in the tent that the base coat was dry to the touch within five minutes or so. With three coats laid down, I left the stinky boat and went home.

Next day, sand again with Abranet 240

Abranet is a great product. Since it’s net instead of paper, the vacuum pulls almost all of the dust through. There’s very little flying dust or residue.

Ready for three more coats

This is a very different grain than the rest of the V-berth

Sanded, vacuumed, wiped down, and ready for more ICA

6 coats total

Looks good!

That’s a wrap

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The V-berth Headliner Install Begins

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Gorgeous Aft Stateroom Fascia Boards

The aft stateroom mahogany fascia boards went to the paint shop and came back finished with eight coats of ICA base clear and two of the matte top coat. They look great.

These look great!

The unpainted surfaces are the contact points where the boards will be epoxied to the ceiling framing.

The big aft board gets glued and clamped in place

Leave it to cure overnight

Next day, the side boards get glued and clamped

First, I wet out the bare wood with US Composites 635 epoxy resin, then I top it with generous dollops of the same epoxy thickened with wood flour.

Ceiling framing wetted out and coated with wood flour-thickened epoxy

Clamps in place and ready to grab the board

Looks good!

1″ x 1″ mahogany cleats help spread the clamping force

I use shrink wrap tape on the cleats so they don’t mark the pretty boards. I find that also helps eliminate ‘print through’ that can happen if the ICA top coat isn’t fully cured.

Nice, tight joint that’s also glued

Port side is next

That’s a pretty board

Next day, off come all the clamps

These turned out really nice!

Now that the fascia boards are installed, we’re almost ready to install the Whisper Wall headliner tracks.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Last Aft Stateroom Overhead Filler Boards

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

I cut more 1/8″ mahogany plywood for the under-deck ceiling panels on the port side, then took them home and put on a couple coats of Minwax urethane varnish. It’s not as tough a product as the ICA two-part catalyzed clear I’ve been using for all of the major interior paneling, but for closet interiors and other places that will never see direct sunlight it’s fine.

First, measure the gap every six inches

Marked off and ready to cut

Nice fit!

 

Plenty of space for Buffalo Batt Insulation

Two coats of Minwax later…

Time to test fit

Not bad!

Needs a batten to join the panels

Like that!

Pay no heed to the grain orientation

I’m using up the 1/8″ plywood scraps here, and I don’t care about grain orientation since the only people who will see these panels are the owner when it comes time to winterize the boat and put the ER vent panels in place, then recommissioning in the spring. They’ll be hidden behind a built-in settee.

Another batten to join the panels

The last outboard mahogany cleat is fitted

And the last panel is cut

I’ll varnish that panel then remove all of them, seal and insulate the backsides before I do the final glue-and-screw installation.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Insulating and Installing the Port Salon Panels

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing Still More Pantry Panels

All the sudden it’s like somebody flipped the Season switch from Winter to Spring. But only for a few days…they say it will snow again on Saturday. So much for getting a bunch of panels epoxied in this weekend. The glue just doesn’t set up very quickly when it’s freezing. But I did manage to get more pantry panels installed in spite of the cold temps.

The PVC plumbing for the black water tank pump-out fits tight to the hull

I used my kerosene heater to heat up the PVC and mold it into shape. It turns out there are electric PVC pipe blankets that do the same thing. But since I’m not a professional plumber, it’s not worth buying another expensive tool I’ll (hopefully) never use again. It’s essential that I keep the pipe as close to the hull as possible so I can maximize the space inside the galley pantry. A big pantry makes for a happy missus, and that’s pretty much my goal in life. 😉

Final pantry wall panel is glued and screwed in place

I also ran the PEX water line that will connect to the original Chris Craft chromed bronze water inlet that I’ll install on the mahogany toe rail, and I put the water tank vent line in position.

Finally! The clamps came off of the first two pantry sections

The first two pantry sections are all glued together. None of the panels there should ever need to be removed, so they’re fixed in place. This back panel on the last pantry section will be removable to give access the hoses and plumbing. I hate it when manufacturers don’t provide access for maintenance.

The 1″x 1″ mahogany backing cleats are installed for the bottom and back panels

Not bad!

It was at this point that I realized I’d forgotten the bottom panel here when I varnished all of the other pantry panels. I’ll get to that soon. I also had to do a bit of trimming on the upper panel, so it can also be removed if necessary. The fit was a bit too tight. Then I applied epoxy to the edges to seal it up. With as warm as it’s been the last two days, hopefully it’ll be cured when I arrive over the weekend. It’ll be nice to finish up this pantry and move on.

Oh…I should maybe also explain that I’ll be making a solid mahogany face frame to cover the edges of the pantry plywood panels and give the door hinges something solid to screw into. But that’s a cosmetic detail that can be done later.

Next up in our

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Pantry Panels

I got my truck back from the transmission shop. The shifting problem it was having appears to have been resolved, but I couldn’t tell for sure because before I got to where the roads are smooth the engine threw the same crankshaft position sensor code as before. GAAH! I’m really getting sick of not having  my truck and making repeat trips to and from the shop.

That said, I am pleased with the way the pantry on the Roamer is turning out.

All panels got three coats of Minwax Spar Urethane clear

Top and bottom panels

Insulating the back-side of all the panels

A buddy of mine sold his wooden Pacemaker 43 last year and got a 41′ Marinette aluminum boat. There’s very little insulation in the Marinette, and he said it’s been a rough winter. They can’t get enough power in the boat to keep it warm. That’s bad news for him, but it makes me more and more convinced that insulating the back-side of all cabinet and wall panels that face the hull envelope is worth the effort. It takes an extra day to cut the Buffalo Batt insulation, wet out the panels with epoxy, press the insulation in place, and wait for the epoxy to cure. But it makes a big difference.

Once the insulation is in place, I press it together with whatever heavy stuff is laying around

Wood flour-thickened epoxy is a strong glue for the complex panels

This top panel will box in the pump-out plumbing

Last prep step: build out the floor at the step to the V-berth

Next day, the epoxy is cured and the panels are finally ready to install

Gluing and screwing the framing

After wetting out the cleat framing with epoxy, I apply wood flour-thickened epoxy, then screw each cleat in place. Then the panel edges and the corresponding attachment points get the same treatment.

Galley Pantry #1 is glued, screwed, and clamped in place

The back panel is 1/8″ cabinet-grade, rotary cut mahogany plywood. It’s pretty stuff, but it doesn’t stay flat on its own. At the top, there’s a 1″ x 1″ mahogany cleat that the top panel will butt up against, and that cleat keeps the top edge of the panel flat. But I had to glue and clamp another cleat onto the back-side at the bottom to keep that edge flat, too. It looks like that will work out fine.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing More Pantry Panels