1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 refit

[SKYCHENEY]

Why tempered for the windshields? If they ever break, they will shatter. I would think laminated glass would be preferable.

[q240z]

I've seen a lot of laminated glass in cars that shattered in collisions. Sometimes there's a curved area in those windshields that matches a human forehead. They say that's a safety feature, and I suppose it's better to be caught by the head in safety glass than to be ejected through a narrow hole with sharp, steel edges at 60mph. But the more I thought about it, boats (mine anyway) aren't generally traveling that fast and they don't generally come to a dead stop in collisions the way cars unfortunately do all too often.

What I've seen on boat glass all the time is the laminate fails by either fogging or bubbling of the plastic layer. Alternatively, one or both panes of glass develop a crack. A laminated window still works as a window even with a crack, I'll grant you that.

But with tempered you eliminate from the equation the whole laminate sandwich mode of failure, which in my experience is the most common. Tempered is also a lot stronger than laminate, and I've read that in sloping installations (including solar) tempered is preferable in that orientation, which applies to my windshields. Another factor was that when it fails, you don't end up with razor-sharp shards popping off. Oh...and after I ordered tempered, I discovered that it's much, much cheaper--$3/ft^2 vs $13 for laminate, AND the glass guy said tempered is pretty much what a lot of the boat builders around Baltimore are using.

[SKYCHENEY]

I don't know where you shop, but tempered was much more expensive than the laminated glass when I replaced my sliders.

[q240z]

A PO had put a big, laminated slider in the aft enclosure of my old Connie 52, and it surprised the heck out of me when it cracked in a corner just from the stress of me pulling it open. That was one of the things that made me decide on tempered.

I found a huge difference in price between my local glass supplier in Northern VA, which is a retail outlet where I'd bought replacement panes before for my other boats, and Baltimore Glass and Mirror, where I bought the ones for my Roamer. As I understand it, BGM is a wholesale-only outfit. They temper on-site. Maybe that's why it was so much cheaper???

In other news, for the first time since 2008 I don't have to jump down a level when going into the v-berth!

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Steps to the V-berth

Cheers,
Q

[SKYCHENEY]

What about squeaking and creaking? Do you glue the joints?

I know when I converted an old Eagle bus into a motorhome, we tried to insulate between wood and metal at bulkheads and cabinetry with thin ozite carpet to prevent rubbing and squeaking.

[q240z]

I don't glue the joints on anything I might one day have to take apart. For the stairs, I intend to make a hatch out of one or both of the steps before putting the flooring down so we can use the space below them for storage. At that point I may glue the joints.

Any idea if Hatteras glues all screwed joinery? Over at Weaver Boatworks and back in the day at Chris Craft, they didn't.

On insulating the backside of wooden panels, I've been mulling that over for a while but haven't decided yet. How did you edge seal the ozite carpet so water from, for example, dripping condensation couldn't get between the insulation and the back side of the wood?

[jim rosenthal]

They don't glue all of it, but some of it. And some of what they glued, you sometimes have to get out. It isn't consistent.

[SKYCHENEY]

Most everything on my boat that I have taken apart has been glued.

[q240z]

Any idea what glue they used? Some of the 1" x 1" cleats on my boat were obviously edge sealed and installed wet...not glued exactly, but there was a bit more than just a mechanical, screwed bond. In other places, especially where there might be exposure to water (e.g. the moldings around the salon windows), the solid mahogany bits were glued with a Sikaflex-like material, then screwed and bunged. In other spots where things might move, like the door frames, all of the solid mahogany is glued and screwed to the plywood. Things that don't move, like cabinet faces or wall panels, were just screwed to cleats.

In other news, we got the accent and boot stripes painted last weekend! That's almost a wrap for the exterior paint. What a slog that was!

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Painting the Stripes

Cheers,
Q

[bobk]

When you get this one finished, there is another large steel boat waiting for you at the marina on Baltimore Yacht Club Road.

Bobk