1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The V-berth Door

I’ve got a huge backlog of articles to write about stuff that’s been finished for a while. So I’m going to try and clear out as many as I can while we’re in this cold snap and it’s just too cold to do much of anything else. First up: the door to the v-berth.

But first, a quick refresher on what I started with.

The original V-berth door was in the middle of the galley bulkhead

After a lot of effort, with the exception of the flooring and some cabinet doors, the v-berth is done. But back in 2019, before the headliner got installed, I made the sliding door to the room out of a Tricel panel, mahogany veneer faces and edgebanding, some scrap 8/4 mahogany, and a heavy duty drawer slide.

First, cut the Tricel panel to fit the height of the door opening

Then cut it length-wise to fit the width

Test fit viewed from the salon

The view from the V-berth

For the edges of the door, I use a Harbor Freight multi-tool to remove 1/2″ or so of the Tricel honeycomb. Then I cut mahogany strips that just fit between the two Tricel face panels where the honeycomb used to be. After wetting out the mahogany and the panel with epoxy, and slathering on epoxy thickened with wood flour, I pushed the mahogany into the gaps and lightly clamped the panel faces until just a bit of epoxy glue squeezed out. That gave the door a solid wood edge all the way around the perimeter. Come back the next day, trim the edges flat, and the door was ready for mahogany veneers and edge-banding.

And just like that…the veneers are done!

Door handles get fitted before I varnished the door

After sanding with 240 grit Mirka Abranet, I moved the doors (I did the head door at the same time) to the aft deck for varnish.

Three coats of ICA base coat turned out very nice

While the varnish cured, I turned a piece of scrap mahogany into a pretty stick that the drawer slide and door will attach to. This is an unconventional approach for sliding door hardware, but the drawer slide worked out really well.

I cut this leftover 8/4 mahogany scrap from the toe rail to length

Next, I jointed the stick on my MiniMax FSB35

Under the rough exterior, there was some pretty mahogany just waiting to come out.

Nice!

Marking off the width needed for the drawer slide

The slide is half of a Sugatsune 26″ stainless steel full-extension side mount drawer set with ball bearings and a soft-close feature, the latter of which turned out to be far cooler than I imagined for a sliding door.

The slide is dry fitted and the mahogany is drilled for screws and cut to the curve of the forward deck overhead

Looks good!

I drilled up through the mahogany into the aluminum deck frame overhead, then tapped those holes for 8-32 machine screws. This turned out pretty slick. You can only see the drawer slide if you’re looking directly up at it from the doorway.

Next, I attached the slide to the door, then separated the slide halves

After attaching the main slide body to the mahogany piece, I slid the slide halves back together

At this point, the door, slide, and mahogany piece were a single assembly.

Ready to lift the assembly up into the overhead pocket and install the screws

Nice!

My v-berth has a sliding door!

With the dry fitting all done, I pulled the whole thing down, took it apart, and varnished the mahogany piece.

The grain is so pretty, it’s a shame only the bottom will be visible

Three coats later, it’s ready for final installation

That turned out pretty slick

OEM Chris Craft sliding door hardware chromed up real nice

I’m glad I kept the old hardware

Boom…done

The door keeps almost all dust from the salon workshop out of the v-berth. And that soft-close feature is so cool. On a drawer, that feature pulls the drawer closed and keeps it that way. It also keeps the drawers from being slammed shut. But in this application, you slide the door open, and in the last four inches or so, the slider takes over. It not only pulls it open that last bit (and preventing slamming), it holds the door open without needing a latch.

V-berth head door looks good, too

Gotta love the rechromed original hardware

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Aft Stateroom Doors

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Fitting the Salon Entry Folding Hatch

I’m still buried with that personal crisis that got dropped on me, but I’m managing to get stuff done on the boat, too.

The salon entry hatch panels need solid mahogany around the edges

Because the dashboard isn’t level but the Tricel hatch panels are, I’m going to make some solid mahogany pieces to even out and fill the gaps between the flat panels and the dashboard. I’ll also need to make a mahogany piece to fill between the hatch panel and the salon door. And I’ll slice off some thin mahogany to use as a veneer on the panel edges where the hinges attach.

I wonder how the grain looks in this heavy piece of mahogany?

I have two of these 2″ thick slabs of mahogany that Chris Craft used to strengthen the cabin sides around the helm area. I don’t need them because I changed the aft deck side entry so it will have sliding doors.

That’s interesting grain; just need to lop off the end

This piece will be on the leading edge of the hatch where it closes against the door

Cut the mahogany to match the angle of the dashboard opening

I like this grain

Nice fit side-to-side

I should maybe trim that leading edge back a bit

The top of the salon door isn’t flat. It’s angled up from left to right, so I need to cut the bottom of this mahogany piece at an angle to match the door. The leading edge of the salon door is also at a different angle than the square hatches, so I’ll need to cut that at an angle, too. Those would be a difficult cuts on a table saw.

Fortunately, angled cuts are a breeze with my EurekaZone track saw

Twp angled cuts, done!

Nice!

The mahogany is 1/4″ proud of the dashboard and bulkhead

Eventually, I’ll make moldings to cover the joint between the dashboard and bulkhead. They’ll be 1/4″ thick and should just match this mahogany piece.

Rounding the top edge looks better

That’s a wrap for the leading edge. Next I made the hatch sides.

Thicknessing pretty mahogany

The sides will be cut at an angle to match the dashboard opening

That’s pretty wood

Cut to length plus a bit for wiggle room when I do the final fit

Trim off a bit of the hatch panel to make room for the new sides

Not bad on the left side, but I need to trim off more from both sides so the right-side mahogany piece fits

Slicing off thin veneer pieces for the panel edges near the hinges

The plan is coming together

Shrink wrap plastic on a flat board helps when epoxying flat hatches to angled mahogany pieces

Epoxy doesn’t stick to the plastic.

Gluing and clamping all the pieces together

You can never have too many clamps

I’m a big fan of these Harbor Freight F clamps in various sizes.

Next day, sand the epoxied joints smooth

Then remove the excess veneer with a router

That’s looking good!

Sand it smooth and the forward hatch is pretty much done

I don’t know if it shows up well in these pictures, but the edges extend beyond the plane of the hatch panels. When the hatch is closed, the portion that sticks out will interlock with the groove that goes around the hatch opening on the dashboard.

The aft hatch is next

The glued edge looks good

Clamping the hinge-edge veneer in place

Next day, remove the excess veneer with a router

Looking good!

Hinges installed…time for a test fit

Those veneers look really good, and the sides fit into the perimeter groove perfectly!

If I didn’t tell you the dashboard opening was twisted, could you see it?

The almost final touch

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Final Fitting, Finishing, and Assembling the Salon Entry Folding Hatch

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Wrapping up the Aft Stateroom Sliding Door Box

The V-berth hatch trim ring and the one for the aft stateroom turned out nicely, and the the aft stateroom entryway looks better than I expected. I’m going to have some mahogany pieces ready to coat with ICA base clear varnish in addition to the aft stateroom wall, and I want to do a bunch of it all at the same time. That ICA is some stinky stuff. I finished fitting the aft stateroom sliding door box a while back, but I still need to finish the bottom edge. Then, it’s varnish time.

Good lookin’ box…goofy lookin’ edge

That raw plywood needs to get covered.

Mahogany veneer should do the trick

Rough-cut to size

Wetted out with US Composites 635 epoxy and 2:1 hardener

Scrap plywood covered with scrap shrink plastic for a clamping jig

Since I’m using epoxy for the veneer glue, it can seep through the veneer while the part is clamped and stick to whatever it’s sitting on. When that happened a while back, a bit of mahogany peeled off the veneer when I separated them. So now I use shrink wrap plastic leftover from the tent skin replacement to clamp epoxied stuff together. Even if the epoxy seeps through, it doesn’t stick to the plastic.

Ready for clamping

Plywood edge and corner piece are wetted out with epoxy

It’s handy to have lots of Harbor Freight clamps sometimes

Next day, I popped the veneered part off the clamp jig

A little trimming with a razor knife

Mini plane comes in handy for finishing the edges

Sanded smooth and ready for ICA clear

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Varnishing the Aft Stateroom Entryway

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Aft Stateroom Entryway Mahogany Panels II

Making the aft stateroom doorway to the salon pretty has been a real challenge, but it’s coming along well. I got the smaller panels installed already, and it’s looking lots better. But getting the bigger panel installed required making the curved bulkhead flat first. Then, the seriously ugly overhead beam posed another challenge. But I got ‘er done.

Flattening the curve

That’s a bunch of 1/4″ and 1/8″ scrap plywood and epoxy thickened with wood flour filling the hollow space where the bulkhead had a bit of a curve. Then I hit the whole thing with an 8″ Makita sander, using a 6-foot straight edge to make sure everything is where it should be. Next step: install the pretty mahogany plywood.

That’s a lot of wood flour-thickened epoxy

The bulkhead isn’t perfectly straight, but wetted out with US Composites 635 epoxy, then topped with wood flour-thickened epoxy will fill imperfections and permanently bond the 1/4″ mahogany plywood to the bulkhead. If water ever gets in here and rots out the wood, the epoxy bulkhead will still be standing!

The ugly lower bulkhead looks better topped with wood flour-thickened epoxy

I could leave it just like it is, and it’d look better than what I started with! On second thought…nah, let’s make it pretty.

Back-side of the mahogany panel wetted out with US Composites 635

Clamps and push sticks and scrap shrink wrap, oh my!

If you look closely, you’ll see push sticks down low that are pushing up against 3/4″ push pads(? AKA scraps of 3/4″ plywood covered with shrink wrap tape, which epoxy can’t stick to), with other push sticks used to keep the pad from moving. Every weekend is a practical lab session testing Newton’s 1st Law, and he was right! Without opposing push sticks exerting equal and opposing force, everything collapses in a heap. Don’t ask how I know!

Gotta cover up that ugly line of headliner staple holes and white paint at the top

The answer to the perpetual question is: save those scraps!!!

This doorway needed four panels to cover all of the ugliness going on, including a little piece at the top. I saved a piece of 1/4″ ribbon stripe mahogany scrap from the V-berth, which I had the Boatamalan painter base coat with ICA polyurethane in a spray booth. This little piece was a scrap I saved, thinking it might come in handy some day. It did!

It’s a different grain, but it’ll look fine

Wet out the little panel with left over epoxy

More clamps to hold the little panel in place

Go home, come back next day

That’s looking pretty good!

Except for this block of ugliness

The block of ugliness is part of the big beam that crosses the top of the aft bulkhead and supports the aft deck. It’s structural, so I can’t remove it. But a bit of veneer could maybe make it less ugly.

Something like this veneer scrap might work

The cut edge of the beam is Peak Ugly

That’s better

Next, I applied contact cement to all of the surfaces and applied the veneer

Two down, one to go

That’s much better!

Not bad, considering what I started with!

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Final Touch on the Aft Head Sliding Door Box

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: 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: Making the Ugly Galley Cabinet Pretty

I’m still working on getting estimates for the damage to the boat from the big Nor’easter that ripped through the area. In the meantime, I had a big pile of relatively fragile 1/8″ mahogany plywood in a full 4×8 sheet and also a lot of large scraps that I wanted to get out of the way. I used it to veneer the bulkhead between the galley and V-berth and also for the insulated ceiling on the underside of the port deck. I’ll use the rest to make the OEM cabinet interiors in the salon and galley pretty. The white paint Chris Craft used didn’t look very good when it was new, and it looks pretty shabby almost 50 years later. The missus and I prefer to see pretty wood on the inside of cabinets, so that’ll be a great spot to use up the leftovers. The aft salon cabinet looks much better with the veneer panels cut and fitted. I did the galley cabinet interior next.

The big pile of 1/8″ mahogany plywood scraps

The ugly galley cabinet

Removing the fiddles took more time than I expected

The fiddles were screwed to the plywood shelf, puttied over, and the cabinet was painted a very long time ago. Unfortunately, two of the screws are back behind the cabinet face panel. Getting them out without breaking anything was a bit of a challenge.

One down, one to go

The plywood pile gets smaller

One box down…

None of the angles in here are 90°, which makes no sense because the cabinet is basically rectangular. Chris Craft was a production boat maker (the largest in the world at the time), but still…you’d think they could have cut the panels square. Getting nice, tight panel joints is much more challenging when nothing is square.

Middle box is done…on to the bottom

The bottom of the bottom box is framed out with ugly cleats

Filling it in with scrap Douglas fir plywood will make for a nice, flat bottom

The pile of 1/8″ mahogany gets smaller by the day!

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Making the Ugly Salon Forward Cabinet Pretty

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Salon Entryway Panels

I haven’t been posting articles at my usual pace, and it’s not just the cold winter that’s slowing me down.

A while back I was moaning and groaning about how my life is a country western song. I’d replaced my beater Ford F150 with a much newer Nissan Frontier, and in no time the automatic transmission went out. In November 2015 I got it back from the shop with a two-year warranty. But within a few weeks the engine lost power. It turned out the catalytic converters had come apart, and there was evidence that the transmission shop caused that to happen by beating on the exhaust near the converters with a big hammer hard enough to dent it. Ceramic from the converters got up into the engine, and the compression had dropped pretty low. But then, as I explained at the end of My Life WAS An Old-School Country Western Song, compression came back up to normal after a few weeks of driving and everything seemed fine.

Fast forward 1,100 miles and I noticed the oil pressure gauge was dropping very low when I went around corners. I stopped to check and found there was no oil on the dipstick! I figured I must have made a mistake when I changed the oil, so I added 3.5 quarts to top it off. Fast forward another 1,000 miles, and the same thing happened again! While all of this was happening, I also had a problem with hard shifting between 2nd and 3rd that you wouldn’t notice on rough roads, but it was very obvious on the smooth roads on the way to the boatyard every weekend. So I took the truck back to the transmission shop, showed them the broken catalytic converters, pictures of the low compression readings, and the still fresh dents on the exhaust system. They took the truck, and a few days later claimed they did something to the transmission, topped up the oil, and told me to come back in 1,000 miles. Same thing happened…rough shift and very heavy oil consumption. When I called the shop, they told me to take it to the dealer to see if they could diagnose the problems. The dealer topped up the oil and told me to come back in 1,000 miles. 500 miles later, the oil had dropped to the ‘add’ line on the dipstick, so I went back. The dealer’s estimate said I needed a remanufactured transmission (they don’t recommend rebuilding) and an engine long block. They didn’t recommend replacing the engine with a used one, since you never can tell how an engine has been used or abused. They also said that since several gallons of oil had passed through my new catalytic converters, they were contaminated and should be replaced. The estimate total was $16,000.

I went a few rounds with the transmission shop before they finally accepted the warranty claim. They replaced the engine with a used one with 95,000 miles, and they replaced a part in the transmission. The engine seemed fine; it felt as powerful as when I first bought the truck. But after driving on smooth roads to the boatyard, it was clear that the transmission problem was still there. I was considering just living with it when the Service Engine Soon light came on. 50 miles later, the truck started stumbling…top speed 60mph on the flat. It was throwing codes for powertrain and crankshaft position sensor.

So…back to the transmission shop once more. I also did some poking around online and found that the hard 2-3 shift is a known problem with these transmissions when they’re rebuilt. There are articles on transmission industry group websites that explain the clutch pack clearances are super critical, but they’re not normally set during a rebuild. Also, some O-rings deep inside the tranny need to be upgraded to nitrile. I shared that info with the shop, and they claim to have fixed everything. I’ll go pick it up today. Hopefully, this will be the final episode in my life as a country western song. This busted truck has been a huge time sucker.

That said, I have been getting things done on the boat when it warms up enough for epoxy to kick. I recently put mahogany veneers on the salon entryway panels.

When we got the boat, somebody had altered the original entryway

The original door was still there, but they’d removed the bi-fold panels that close the dashboard and added an upper door and a plexiglass enclosure. It was very unattractive. So I’m going back to the original configuration, with a piano hinge between bi-fold panels.

The upper entry panels are 3/4″ Tricel

Tricel is lightweight and structurally robust. I’m using it instead of 3/4″ plywood for the interior doors on the boat, and I had just enough left over to make these panels.

I’m on the last pieces of veneer, so efficient layout is essential

US Composites epoxy with 2:1 no-blush hardener is a great product

Roll on just enough epoxy to wet the veneer backing surface but not so much that it pools

Next, wet out the Tricel panels

With clamps, thick lumber, and a bunch of heavy old zincs, press the panels and veneer together

A vacuum table is what I wish I had. I just can’t justify one for the limited veneer work I’ll be doing.

Next day…the clamps and zincs come off

Nice!

Trim the excess veneer, then do the other side

Be very sparing when epoxying the veneer, otherwise it bleeds through

Position the veneer on the panel

Use a squeegee to remove air bubbles

Repeat on the other panel

I use shrink wrap plastic scraps left over from the tent to separate the two panels

Final pressing

That’s not a wrap for these panels. I still have to make solid mahogany edges for them, which is something I’ve never done. That’s not a top priority, though, so I have time to think through how I’ll do it. In the meantime…I’m off to get my truck!

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

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: More Galley Bulkhead Veneers

With the V-berth mahogany panels all installed, I continued the theme by cutting and installing veneer panels on the galley bulkhead.

Middle galley bulkhead veneer panel is cut and ready to epoxy in place

Rolling on just enough epoxy to wet out the surface but not saturate or have standing pools is the key, I’ve found.

Bulkhead and veneer panel are wetted out

Give it an hour or so to start to get tacky

Custom panel handles made from 2″ tape

The panels are wetted out all the way to the edge, so if I touch the edges when installing I’ll end up getting epoxy on my gloves and spreading it all over the place. The little tape tabs allow me to position the panel without ever coming near the edges.

That went well

After hitting the panel with a squeegee several times over an hour or so, some of the edges still wanted to lift off the bulkhead just a bit. So I put some  sticks in place to press the edges into full contact.

Next day: galley bulkhead #2 is installed

I should probably note here that very little of these veneer panels will actually be visible once the cabinets and fridge are in place. When you open the cabinets you’ll see them, and they’ll be visible between the countertops and upper cabinets. But there won’t just be a big wall of plain wood.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The Last Galley Bulkhead Veneer

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Final V-berth Veneers

It is Thanksgiving morning here in the United States of America, so I’d like to wish a happy holiday to everyone who celebrates it. One thing I’m certainly giving thanks for today is that, one by one, I’m knocking out all of the V-berth mahogany panels in this enormous boat project I took on back in late 2007. The final ones were veneers to cover the okoume bulkhead that separates the V-berth from the galley and salon.

First, I made a template out of sticks, using a hot glue gun

Then, I transferred the pattern to the last bit of ribbon stripe mahogany veneer

I used a razor knife to cut the veneer

I wetted out the bulkhead and veneer with epoxy, then messed around with other stuff, like taping off the pretty mahogany cabinetry around the bulkhead, until the epoxy started getting tacky.

Next, I applied the veneer and used a squeegee to ensure 100% contact

For an hour or so, I’d come back and hit the veneer with the squeegee to make sure no air bubbles developed. After a while it became clear that, having been rolled up for a long time, the veneer really wanted to return to the rolled-up shape. It was only the edges that were curling up, but something had to be done to keep them in place.

Sticks, clamps, and more sticks keep full contact at the edges

Next I wetted out the ‘desk-like structure’ top panel and clamped it in place

It looks goofy, but it works!

101 uses for having a level on the boat. #97 is using it to apply even clamping force across long surfaces.

Next day, off come the clamps

And on goes the cardboard

I don’t want any scratches to happen while I wrap up the V-berth

Next I wetted out the last bulkhead panel with epoxy

Wetting out the 1/8″ mahogany plywood veneer panel took some gymnastics

The last thing I need is sticky epoxy getting spread around in here. If I get epoxy on the face side, it will most likely leave a visible stain when it’s clear coated.

2″ tape works pretty good as ‘panel handles’ for 1/8″ plywood

The panel is in place, but I need sticks and clamps to hold it there

After hitting the panel with a squeegee many times, I went and got a pile of sticks, blocks and clamps to hold the veneer panel tight to the bulkhead.

Every stick, wedge, block, and angle is just so…

More sticks at the top

It took about 45 minutes and three tries to finally get everything to stay in place. I’d almost get this Rube Goldberg clamp contraption done, then one stick would slip, fall, and take out everything around it. But eventually, they all cooperated and I backed away very, very slowly.

Next day…the last panel is in!

So…that’s a wrap for the V-berth mahogany panel install. I’ve still got a bunch of moldings to make, but I’m having trouble with my jointer. I think I need a new one…a Grizzly 8″ with the helical carbide cutters would be nice to find under the Christmas tree this year. Time will tell if Santa’s listening.

But for now…Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: More Galley bulkhead Veneers