1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 refit

[q240z]

Thanks!

Land-side is dangerous, indeed. Word has it they're taking down the other, much bigger tree next to the tent today. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

But in the meantime, I'm knockin' off the porthole glass installation one-by-one. Only four more to go. I'm also working on getting rub rails and safety rail stanchions installed. All of these are essential, must-do items before the boat can splash or even be exposed to water, since they all involve holes on the outside of the boat. As an added benefit, each little bit makes the boat just a bit more sparkly! I started on the worst of the safety rail stanchions last week, sanding them with 150 grit to get rid of gouges, nasty pits, and surface rust, then progressing up through 220, 400, 600, 1000, 1200, and finally 1500 grit paper. You wanna talk about tedious? Lemme tell ya about tedious. But by the end of the day, even the nastiest tube was looking pretty good.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Refurbishing Stainless Stanchions

Cheers.
Q

[Walter P]

Q. is their anything that you're not good at. Those stanchions look better than new ones.

Walt

[SEVEN]

That's it, I'm buying a polisher. They look fabulous. I had a maintenance yard bend one of mine which they replaced. It looks like a mirror. I want all of my SS to look like your rails. Great job.

[jim rosenthal]

I like the part where you talk about "spare time". What an interesting concept.

[q240z]

Thanks, guys.

Walt, I definitely suck when it comes to estimating what it'll take to get a boat in the water.

Jim, that spare time thing is a recent unfortunate phenomenon. My painter's been incommunicado for the last month. I don't know if he's sick again or what. I do have to get the stainless all installed, but I'd rather be cutting plywood for the V-berth. But I can't do that until the V-berth head gets painted.

[q240z]

Speaking of spare time...on the one hand, polishing stainless is a job that gives pretty instant gratification. On the other, this boat's got a lot of stainless bits and pieces, which makes polishing a tedious job that just keeps going and going. This time around, I worked on the stainless bilge vent scoops. If anybody knows of an old Chris Craft Commander or Roamer on purgatory row with the stainless side vent scoops, I'd be interested in buying a few.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Polishing Still More Stainless

Cheers,
Q

Before


After

[q240z]

The boatyard cleared out all of the old trees near the tent. It's a lot brighter inside the tent without that big old maple outside. I've got the glass installed in 9 out of the 14 portholes, but my painter has suddenly gone missing. This is bad news, since my v-berth head isn't painted yet. So I'm still wailing away on stainless. It's tedious work, but the results at the end of each day are worth it.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Polishing Even More Stainless

Cheers,
Q

[jim rosenthal]

Q, you need another blue plastic barrel like those? I have one sitting around here, trying to find a home for it.

[oscarvan]

Sounds like you may have to master the painting thing too......

[SEVEN]

This one's close to real-time. For a couple of seconds last weekend, I thought my luck had run out in 2016. Two years ago, burglars cleaned out the tent, stealing all of my tools, materials, and boat parts. Last year, the boat next to mine blew up, damaging the tent and my boat. But this year, aside from the scorchingly hot summer, no real disasters hit me. And then I went to the boatyard and saw that one of the massive oak trees near my boat had toppled during a recent storm. As I walked up to the tent from the rear, it sure looked like the tree had to have taken out the tent. But it didn't! Missed it by >this< much!

I also did a little upgrade to my Makita polisher to make it a better buffing tool.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Disaster Narrowly Averted...and a Polisher Upgrade

Cheers,
Q

Can you give me the details on that buffer/polisher. I want to make sure I buy the right one. Also is there a certain rouz? spelling? That you use.