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Using a Shop Smith Mark V on a Chris Craft Roamer refit

roamer46

It was one helluva sticky epoxy weekend, but I did get the big mahogany panel installed. Turned out pretty nice, too.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the New Mahogany V-berth Bulkhead Panel

Cheers,

Q

Before

After

swampgator

I am really enjoying this thread and all the pictures. Looking forward to the final tour to see all your work and success. Good luck.

Steve, the old Florida gator

roamer46

Thanks, Steve!

To put the portholes in as part of the waterproofing effort, I need to get all of the mahogany panels surrounding the portholes installed. The ones in the V-berth will be the most challenging, since the hull and frames there are curved and I'd like the plywood to more or less follow those curves. I thought I'd be able to just transfer the shape of the original wall panels, which were made of medium density fiberboard, to plywood, but the properties of those two materials are different enough that it's just not working well at all. I've got some ideas for how to make it work, but I wanted to ponder on it for a bit before cutting into the mahogany panels. That stuff is expensive, and I don't want to end up with a big pile of scrap.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Preparing to fit the V-berth Mahogany Panels

Cheers,

Q

Good fit with the fiberboard

Not so good fit with luan plywood practice panel

beeg

Might try cutting shallow dados that wood allow the sheet to bend a little better.

BuckeyeDennis

With a track saw, you could easily kerf the backside of the plywood in any direction, for easier bending along any particular axis. But I think that it still isn't going to want to form a compound curve.

If it were solid wood, you could (theoretically) steam it and install while "stretchy". But I don't think that would work out real well with pre-finished plywood!

Which brings us to "planking" it. Cut into sufficiently narrow "boards", the plywood would conform to the compound curves. Which could look good/appropriate, but you would have a whole lot of edge seams to deal with. What kind of seam treatment were you contemplating for the full-sized sheets?

roamer46

All valid suggestions...and I considered every one of them, but ultimately I went another way. Kerfing the backside is an approach I've used before, but this is 3-ply plywood. My concern was that I'd end up with hard lines at the kerfs instead of a smooth arc. Planking would look planky...I wanted to avoid that. 'Light dawned on rocky dome' when I realized that if I changed the orientation of the pattern on the plywood, I'd end up with a longer leading edge and shorter trailing edge, and that would give better results when I warped the panel into position. It also helped to appreciate that since this isn't a structural piece, the cleats don't need full contact with the back of the panel from top to bottom. I also decided a full-length shelf at the bottom edge of the panel (similar to what Chris Craft did) would be a good thing. That shelf will tie the panel into the rest of the cabinetry around the bunk and stabilize the bottom edge of this panel even where it doesn't contact the cleat. I think it turned out pretty good.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Cutting and Fitting the V-berth Port Side Mahogany Panel

Cheers,

Q

roamer46

I got the starboard side done next. There sure is less drama once you work out how to do stuff. lol

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Cutting and Fitting the V-berth Starboard Side Mahogany Panel

Cheers,

Q

roamer46

Well, my painter's schedule and mine still aren't matching up. That's really putting the hurt into my plan to splash this year. But something else came up (or down) that required my attention: cutting up some big old, dying maples that were endangering my house. I spent two weekends cutting them up, but that's pretty much done now. I'll be back in the boatyard this weekend, and hopefully the painter will show up.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Taking A Break...sort of

Cheers,

Q

swampgator

Wow, Chris. What a large maple. If I had a couple of slices of that, I could saw them into blocks and let them dry. That is almost perfect size wood for making mallets. You could turn them on the Shopsmith and give them to all your helpers after the boat is finished. Looking forward to the completed interior.

Steve, the old Florida gator

I just love it when she says I can go make sawdust. ;) :D

roamer46

Steve, I could make a lot of very big mallets with the pile of maple I've got. lol

My painter's schedule still isn't matching mine, so I cut, insulated, and installed the back wall in the laundry closet. Getting the washer and dryer into their final resting places will be a HUGE improvement in the aft stateroom. I'm getting sick of climbing around them.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The Laundry Closet Back Wall

Cheers,

Q

roamer46

I lost track of one of my 2" 6061 aluminum raw water intake standpipes. I've been going through my garage, the tent, and the boat trying to find it, but no luck so far. It's making me nuts, because I know that if I give up and just find somebody to make a new one machined with National Pipe Straight threads on one end, the old one will pop out of the woodwork, make me trip and fall, and I'll probably be paralyzed for life. So I'm periodically wasting hours and hours on nights and weekends digging around trying to find it. While digging through the mahogany lumber stack, I decided it was time to finally saw up the original toe rails into 1" x 1" cleats that I'll use to build out the interior. It's not the kind of progress I need to be making, but I now have a good supply of cleats and the lumber stack is cleared of the old stuff.

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

Cheers,

Q

roamer46

I finally got the mahogany plywood sprayed with ICA base coat clear. Four coats in the first round. Next I'll sand that and we'll hit it with another four coats of the base. Then sand again and topcoat. It's looking good so far.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Spraying Mahogany Panels with ICA Base Coat Clear

Cheers,

Q

roamer46

I got all of the mahogany panels sanded, then we sprayed the second round of four coats of ICA base clear. It's looking very nice! I'll sand the base once more, then we'll top coat with semi-matte.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Sanding and Spraying the 2nd Coat on the Mahogany Panels

Cheers,

Q

roamer46

And now all of the panels are top coated with ICA semi-matte clear. They turned out real nice!

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Sanding and Spraying the Top Coat on the Mahogany Panels

Cheers,

Q

roamer46

I spent a weekend insulating the back-side of the mahogany panels we just sprayed. With some of the aft stateroom cabinet pieces, it was challenging remembering which ones needed insulation and which ones didn't. Anyway, after a sticky epoxy weekend, all of the panels are insulated...they're ready to install.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Insulating Mahogany Wall Panels

Cheers,

Q

roamer46

Finally! I got the port-side V-berth mahogany panel installed. If I do say so myself, it looks pretty good for a weekend warrior!

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Port V-berth Mahogany Wall Panel

Cheers,

Q

nuhobby

Stunning! That's got to feel good seeing that after all your work.

Chris

roamer46

Thanks, Chris! It certainly does! I'll get the other panel installed over this weekend...can't wait!

In other news, this isn't directly related to my boat refit, but it's one of many things that's happened this year that contributes to the boat not splashing.

The transmission went out in my truck late last year. $3500 later, the tranny was working fine, but a month later the engine started sounding like it was coming apart. We barely made it home, and a compression test revealed low compression. Codes indicated bad catalytic converters. Dents on the exhaust pipe indicated the tranny shop had beaten hard on the exhaust, which might have caused the cats to fracture and come apart, blocking the exhaust system and sending ceramic particles up into the cylinders. With new cats in, the truck ran OK but still had low compression on a few cylinders. But recently I tested it again and found the compression was restored! 190~200psi in all cylinders! Here's hoping the magic that fixed the truck gets sprinkled on the boat. It'd be good to have things go my way after some of the unfortunate things that have happened over the years to delay the project.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: My Life WAS An Old-School Country Western Song

Cheers

Q

skou

Ooh, cat guts!

OK, I pulled the rear cat off

of a friend's Taurus. It was

clogged with the remains of

one of the forward cats.

Since he is using his sister's

address, (out of the greater

Phoenix area) he doesn't need

to be tested. I replaced the rear

cat, with a bent piece of exhaust

tubing.

Now, mentioning cat guts.

I've got 2 orange tabby boys,

and a grey and white female.

Oh, the boys are twins, from

the same litter.

We're not counting the 5 feral

cats outside.

steve

roamer46

I can't tell you how sick I am of cat guts!!! lol

I got the starboard V-berth panel installed. Those two curved panels were the biggest interior challenge I've knocked out so far. I am sooooo glad to be done with them. It's starting to look like a boat interior again!

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the Starboard V-berth Mahogany Wall Panel

Cheers,

Q

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