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

[roamer46]

I got some plywood installed in the galley. I've been anxious to see how my insulation plan would work out. Turns out it's very time consuming. Hopefully, it will be worth it in the end.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: 1st Galley Plywood Install

Cheers,
Q

[charlese]

I'll bet your year long project seems like it has taken on a life of it's own. Especially with neighbors that explode.

Hope you can recover some insurance and keep on, keeping on to finish!

[roamer46]

Year-long? We started on this in 2007! lol

That said, the POS owner of the company that blew up the boat is trying very hard to vanish. And the boat was uninsured. Not looking good so far. But thanks for the thoughts!

[roamer46]

Since the insulation worked out well on some ugly douglas fir marine ply, I decided to give a slightly modified approach to some pretty African mahogany ply for the aft stateroom.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Aft Stateroom Wall Panel Install

Cheers,
Q

[roamer46]

It's getting hot in the tent, so I'm shifting gears and heading lower in the boat...time to get the engines installed.

Over the winter I posted about a gantry I designed that I intended to use to install the engines. Well, I finally got around to making that bad boy. Professional welders will want to avert their gaze from the amateur welds, but I think it turned out good 'nuff.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Gantry Time II!

Cheers,
Q

[roamer46]

I got that beast of a gantry onto the boat and set up. My amateur welds...are holding up perfectly! Nobody's dead yet!

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Cummins Engine Installation I

Cheers,
Q

[roamer46]

Getting the gear and prop shaft couplers to line up is proving to be a challenge. Having never done this sort of thing before, I'm finding that many of my assumptions were wrong. Also, I don't know if I've been distracted or if I'm just dumb, but things I haven't seen until late in the game are complicating things even further. That said, the gantry is slick as heck and I am making progress. Even on the hottest days we've had this summer, it's nice and cool in the engine room with just a fan running.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Cummins Engine Install — Spacers

Cheers,
Q

[BuckeyeDennis]

Q, I feel your pain on the engine mounting. I'm currently working on adding a room into some former attic space. This involves significant structural upgrades. I keep unconciously assuming that the existing framing is reasonably true, which bites me in the butt at every opportunity. Even simple stuff like 16" O.C. joists -- one of them was exactly an inch off, right where I had to frame in a new attic access hatch.

Buckeye's new law of preexisting structures: "If you forget to measure it, it is wrong."

So are you cutting that 3/8" aluminum angle on the SS with an ordinary carbide-toothed wood blade? I thought that I was the only one crazy enough to do that! Actually, the piece I cut was only 1/8" wall, and I used an old beater tabletop saw that I keep around just for such abuse. It worked just fine, though. Except that cleaning up all those aluminum chips was a PITA, and I had to pick some gummy aluminum shards off of the saw teeth afterward.

[roamer46]

"If you forget to measure it, it is wrong."

There is no greater truth.

Yup, I'm using a carbide blade to cut the aluminum. That's one of the nice things about this material--any old carbide tool can cut or shape it. The SS isn't the most powerful saw, but I just slow the feed speed down and it works just fine.

[tomsalwasser]

Yup, I'm using a carbide blade to cut the aluminum. That's one of the nice things about this material--any old carbide tool can cut or shape it. The SS isn't the most powerful saw, but I just slow the feed speed down and it works just fine.

Just a hypothetical here. If your angle iron was steel, is there a blade and technique that could be used on the SS to make the cut? I need to cut some angle iron and I was getting ready to break out my crappy old hack saw.