Future Brown Water Cruiser: 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit

[q240z]

Temps won't go above freezing today and tomorrow. With wind chill, it'll be below 0°F. So I think I'm officially declaring the end of the painting season for 2016. Fate has conspired to delay the v-berth head, toe rail, and a few other parts that need painting until it warms up in 2017. But I'm still steaming ahead with other stuff. I got the old raw water inlets cut out of the boat and the new ones test fitted.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Main Raw Water Inlets

Cheers,
Q

Old


New

[q240z]

My old Ford F150 was quickly returning to a state of nature, so I bought a new-to-me Nissan Frontier with low miles in the spring. After replacing an alternator, belts, tires, and tire air pressure sensors, the Nissan truck was working out pretty good. Then the missus crashed her car and had to use mine. Then the transmission failed catastrophically...during rush hour...on a bridge. So I don't have a vehicle to put my Miller Trailblazer in to go weld up the raw water inlet standpipes.

I still have the exhaust to finish, though, so I started cutting stainless to finish the risers. I left the shop on the final cut, only planning to be gone for a minute. That turned into 10 minutes. When I came back, I found the part had come unclamped and caused the bandsaw blade to lock up, frying the motor. Got a new motor, then discovered that the blade was shot.

My painter was going to paint the v-berth head last weekend, when we had warm weather for a couple of days. But his car broke down (another bad transmission!) and the guy who was giving him a ride hit black ice and crashed into a tree. Nobody got hurt, but the painter's out of commission until he can pay to get his car back from the shop.

I did manage to weld one bracket to the showerhead without killing anybody.

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

Cheers,
Q

[excess_risk]

Yikes! Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed! Glad everyone is ok. [emoji106]

[q240z]

Too true! It just keeps on comin'!

$3,500 later, my truck transmission is fixed, but now it's running rough and tripping catalytic converter codes! Dang it!

But on the boat refit, I decided to use a combination of ceramic fiber blanket insulation and Inferno Wrap to insulate the dry sections of my exhaust risers, which I'll top with a layer of fiberglass and high temp epoxy to make the hard shell. The ceramic fiber blanket worked out real well. If I had to do over again, I'd skip the Inferno Wrap entirely. Aw well...lesson learned.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Insulating the Starboard Exhaust Riser

Cheers,
Q

[q240z]

I decided to make new safety rail stanchions to replace the four made from tubing that had been replaced at some point in the boat's life. The tubing stanchions are shiny, but you can't make proper NPT threads on tubing. The stanchion bases mount to the mahogany toe rail, and even though I sealed up all of the wood with epoxy I don't want water leaking past the threads. All it would take is a pinhole...

So, on the recommendation of some fabricator buddies, I first tried to have the new pipes threaded on a professional-grade machine. That didn't work out so well. The nice fellow at Home Depot cut the threads, but when I picked up the pipes he said something about the stainless being particularly hard and the threader die not being as sharp as it could be. Turns out he made the threaded area deform into a triangular shape. So, on the advice of other fabricator buddies, I bought some stainless nipples and welded them to the pipes. That approach turned out pretty good. I have to admit that having the tungsten sticking out 1" to tack the pipe to the nipple was unnerving at first, but it worked out really well.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The Safety Rail Stanchions (again)

Cheers,
Q

[q240z]

Earlier this year, I got all of the remaining tinted glass I need but then discovered that some panes didn't fit. Some of them were my fault and others were the glass factory's fault. Either way, we finally got the issues resolved satisfactorily and the new glass arrived on the day after Christmas. The boat looks better with each piece that get installed. Let's hope I can pick up the pace and get this thing splashed before the end of the season in 2017.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Last of the New Tinted Glass Has Arrived!

Cheers,
Q

[knottybuoyz]

Looks great Q. This thread is a 'virtual DIY'ers' encyclopedia!

Windows look fantastic. I'm sure you'll get her in the water before much longer! What's are the big items on the 'punch list' yet to be done?

[q240z]

Thanks, knottybuoyz!

The big punch list items are:
prime and paint the v-berth head
raw water inlets
wall panels so I can...
install the portlights
finish the exhaust
Fuel manifold
Finish the dashboard
sliding helm doors

Easy peasy, eh?

[knottybuoyz]

Originally Posted by q240z

Easy peasy, eh?

Walk in the park buddy! You got this!

[q240z]

I appreciate the kudos, but...

Over the New Year weekend, I dug back into my exhaust risers. I was hoping to get them both insulated and covered with a hard shell fiberglass layer, but the only good that came out of two days' work was that I added another 1" layer of that ceramic fabric blanket I'm using. The mandrel bends are so tight that I'm not able to get the fiberglass layers to lay down tight to the substrate and smooth. There's also a question of how to stop gravity from making the resin run to the bottom of the risers and drip off if I wet the fiberglass out enough to give a nice, shiny top coat appearance. Much as I hate to admit defeat, this one's got me stumped. I'm leaning toward just wrapping the ceramic blankets with Inferno Wrap and calling it done. If anybody has any suggestions, I'm all ears.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: More Exhaust Riser Insulation

Cheers,
Q

[neptunesjester]

The inferno wrap by itself works great. I wrapped my risers in it and you can still put your hand on it after running 8 hours. Great insulation. I clamped both ends with a stainless band. After 8 years of service, it still looks like I installed it yesterday.

[q240z]

Man, that's good to hear. I figured it if got oily, I could just unwrap it, soak it in degreaser, then run it through the washer and dryer when the missus is gone for the afternoon. Either way, it's a lot easier than wasting more time on that hard shell.

[q240z]

The weather broke for a couple of days that just happened to coincide with free time in my painter's schedule. So we got busy, finished the fairing on the V-berth head, and then sprayed the Awlgrip 545 primer. It turned out really nice. Now we're waiting for another break in the weather that matches my painter's timetable to get the paint done. We're slowly gettin' 'er done.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Priming the V-berth Head

Cheers,
Q

[q240z]

Man...things have been nuts in the Mid-Atlantic region. I got the heck out of dodge and got some of my rub rails installed. The boatyard in winter is an island of sanity in a sea of absurdity.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing More Stainless Rub Rails

Cheers,
Q

[q240z]

In other news, we finally got a break in the cold weather at the same time as my painter's schedule opened up. That V-berth head I started on back in March 2013 is sanded and ready for paint. Booyah.

Roamer 46 Refit: Final Sanding the V-berth Head

Cheers,
Q