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

[roamer46]

My painter is too busy to do the fiberglass and paint in the V-berth head, so I switched over to the engine room and finished up the new muffler platforms then installed them. It really sucks only having one 120v 20 amp slow-blow circuit breaker feeding half of the yard. I find that my AlphaTIG pops the breaker almost immediately if I run straight AC. If I use high frequency and ramp it up to 200Hz, I can run it long enough to attach the parts. But I've got to let the extension cord cool off between welds. It's a proper 250/125v/30 amp marine shore power cord, but at 149 amps output this supply is right on the edge.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Muffler Platforms

Cheers,
Q

[roamer46]

I am juggling many, many things right now. They're all pretty much headed in the right direction, but each item on the honey-do list seems to have parts or supplies that I didn't foresee I'd need. So I make good progress and then get stalled and have to start on something else. Then the other job I start on gets stalled because I need parts or supplies. Which is why I removed the rub rails and got to work polishing them...and then I ran out of rouge.

GAH!

But along the way, I also may have identified a problem that causes the paint to fail near the screw holes for the rails and the rather simple solution to the problem. Anyway, it's all good progress and all kinds of parts and supplies are on the way. I haven't given up on splashing later this year...yet.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Rub Rails

Cheers,
Q

[roamer46]

The weather hasn't been too great recently, so I had to hold off on polishing the rest of the rub rails. I'm also waiting patiently for my Boatamalan painter's schedule to clear so he can get to work on the V-berth head. In the meantime, I got some additional holes filed on the outside of the boat. Installing chromed bronze and polished stainless bits not only fills the holes and gets the boat closer to being weather-proof, they make the boat prettier, too!

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Running Lights

Cheers,
Q



Check out that mirror-like finish! Can't wait to get this thing out on the water!

[tomsalwasser]

Roamer, you strike me as a person with the patience of Job, the wisdom of Solomon and the skills of the entire cast and crew of This Old House and Orange County Choppers combined. And a healthy project budget to boot. I have no doubt this will be a spectacular cruiser and I can't wait to see the launch. I hope you'll have a video crew on hand and take us all along!

[roamer46]

Thanks! But you also forgot another, even more essential trait: the lunacy of the entire cast of characters in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest! Because only a crazy person would take on something like this!

But as to budget, I find that people spend money on all sorts of things I can't understand--new cars that depreciate 20% when you drive them off the lot, season tickets so you can sit with tens of thousands of other fans and watch people chase each other around fields and courts...the list goes on. Fortunately, my boat addiction keeps me engaged both physically and mentally (both creatively and technically), so I spend nothing at the doctor, and I don't need a shrink or therapist.

I do indeed intend to take video when we splash. Hopefully, that will be later this year.

[roamer46]

Getting the engines ready to start is another big item on the honey-do list. Since I'm using the original 1969 Chris Craft gauges, getting the Cummins engines to interface with the OE wiring is just a bit tricky. But first, I needed to make a base to mount the Chris Craft ammeter shunt and a terminal strip where the Cummins and Chris Craft wiring can join.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Engine Wiring

Cheers,
Q

[roamer46]

2016 started out looking like the year the boat might splash. There have been a few small bumps along the way, but no "deal-killers." My painter has been very busy recently, so that's put a crimp in getting the forward head ready to install the portholes. But once he gets going, the work gets done fast and right, so I didn't think his schedule would kill mine. Then the missus went on her annual pilgrimage back to visit family for 6 weeks, starting in April, which put me into bachelor mode. On the one hand, I can get more done on the boat in bachelor mode because my schedule is entirely my own. But on the other hand, everything my wife does to keep the household neat, tidy, and well fed falls to me, in addition to my other, normal duties. On average, I'd say I get less done in bachelor mode than when the missus is here. But then, just a couple of weeks after she returned, we got the call that her father had died. We knew it was coming and had been trying to figure out what to do next when the old man forced our hand and checked out. Can't blame him...90 years ain't bad at all. But now I'm back in bachelor mode for another 6 weeks, and I'll be heading over for the final ceremony at the end of June. In light of everything else, I've pretty much concluded there's no way the boat can splash this year. The optimist in me hasn't given up hope yet, but the realist is looking at the honey-do list and the calendar and shaking his head NO.

On behalf of the optimist, I've been getting more engine wiring done. It's coming along well, and I'm pretty sure my OE Chris Craft gauges will work just fine with these Cummins 6CTAs I've installed. The problem-solving involved is a welcome distraction from the other things that are going on.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer Refit: Engine Wiring II

Cheers,
Q

[ERLover]

My condolences on your father in law, I hope he went peacefully and comfortably.

[roamer46]

Thanks, ERLover. He did, indeed, go both peacefully and comfortably. 90 years old and wasn't on any medication until the Alzheimer's meds that gave him night terrors a month before he passed without actually helping the Alzheimer's problem. Other than that, he was in good health...just old. And then it became clear he was shutting down one circuit breaker at a time. And then, one morning...gone.

He had a good run. It was time.

[ERLover]

Thanks, ERLover. He did, indeed, go both peacefully and comfortably. 90 years old and wasn't on any medication until the Alzheimer's meds that gave him night terrors a month before he passed without actually helping the Alzheimer's problem. Other than that, he was in good health...just old. And then it became clear he was shutting down one circuit breaker at a time. And then, one morning...gone.

He had a good run. It was time.

I am glad he went that way. Mom turned 96 May 15, mind is still sharp,but she is getting chipped away at physically, like a looser at a Black Jack Table. I hope some morning she does not wake up. Not to ease my burden, just because a nice way to pass, when your mind is still sharp. No suffering. If she was just a lost mind, and drooling in her chair, I would say in the "Home", but she still balances her check book to the penny, managers her meds, does Zuduco in the morning paper, ect. It is very frustrating for her, till last July she drove, lived in her home independently, all her own shopping, cleaning, laundry ect then a UTI that went systemic to her lungs, Aug in the hospital, Sept in rehab, and if my Bro, a retired Physician Asst did not come in from CA in August and over seen here hospital care and the Drs, that would have written of a 95 year old that physical and mental functioned at the level of a 70 year old, b4 the UTI, she would have been gone. Besides Medicare she has a supplement Ins so it was not about $ for the hospital and Drs.
At 96 and after that, I would still, mental facilities put her up against some here, and my money would be on her JPG excluded