68 Chris Craft

A full day in but its almost done. I need to make a couple more boards for the front, they cracked onthe pre fit but everything else went well today and its all bedded in mahogony 5200 and should be as water tight as a glass boat and a lot stronger than it was before. we have to go back and remove the screws and countersink them and install the plugs before starting the sanding. then it will be on to stain and bottom paint i hope so we can flip this sucker!

No solvents, and there is no cCPES on the out board sides. I sealed the inner and the butt joints and left the face bare as per Danenbergs recommendations. The color difference is due to a screw up I made early on in the project. When i ordered the mahogany i measured the boards and counted them. when we started figuring out how it went together we discovered we needed wider boards to cut the highly curved boards out of. The wider boards had to come from a different supplier and thus are a different shade, the lighter ones.

It looks like we are going to have to bleach the darkest ones above the water line to lighten them up then stain them to match. Not ideal but its what i have to work with. Hopefully it all works out, because i dont really want to do this again.

I plan to CPES over the stain and I try the 27/75 thanks for the tip. Got a lot more countersinking and plugging to do but im looking forward to painting the bottom and getting the varnish on. Then we can flip it and decide what to do with the top side. The grand prix model was so much prettier with the white interior and wood deck, its very tempting to upgrade and loose the vinyl deck...

Thanks for the tips Pete

Sean,
Now I remember you having to go with two batches of wood. Always seems to be something comming up when tearing into a wood boat!!!

It's going to be tough to match all the planks even with bleaching. Use one of the two part bleaches first and hopefully you won't need to go all the way with Clorox. I have had to when the wood bleach didn't remove all the color. The darker planks may need several treatments. It will be hard to keep the bleach from migrating to the lighter planks so after the darks, you'll need to do the whole boat several times. Then, cross your fingers that the filler stain will take to the different wood evenly. Don't try to "paint" the boat to even the color out with the filler stain as it's worse than some mismatched plank colors. A "painted" hull with the filler stain is one of the first things the judges including myself look at.

I spent the entire afternoon yesterday screwing, I finally got around to pulling the temporary screws and countersinking and final screwing the boards. We got one side done yesterday and hope to do the other one this week. Then we can start ont he plugging, sanding and bleaching.

Progress is kind of slow this winter, mostly lacking ambition this winter. I need to get myself motivated before spring gets here.

I have not picked up a plug cutter yet, Jack sent me up a bag of plugs to play around with but so far everything i did is famowood below the waterline. we have been debating on buyinh more plugs or cutting them here.

we were debatin the glue yesterday. Titebond was the thought though we really have not dug into the options to deeply yet. Did not think about the 5200 there...

Sean,
Yes I've played with stain matching. It's not easy and sort of like trying to match gel color but with a added complication. When you put the finish (varnish) on it will change the color again. The last match I tried was on my X55 dunphy. I made up 18 different blends of stain on test samples and then varnished. Never did get the color correct.

I'm glad he's using the tails of the different wood you used. That's a BIG difference as different wood will "take" a stain differently.

Is he going to bleach first or just go after the difference with stain?

When I did my Atom, I ordered the deck ply from the east coast. I didn't spec that it needed to be color matched. 1 of the 4 sheets was a different color. Big mistake as I proceeded with the project. Tried stain matching without success and have to get quite agressive with the bleach (Clorox).

Way back when I was refinishing at the marina, many of the projects had gone to the point where they had water stains in the wood. These too needed bleaching.

I'm not saying bleaching is absolutely needed if he can do it with just stain. It's just not easy!

Sean,
Paint the bottom and get at least the base coats of varnish on the hull sides now before flipping. It's alot easier upside down!!

If your refinisher has some tricks to keep the stain from migrating to a plank you don't want stained, listen too him. I'd be interested too as I've never had much luck with it. Always seems to bleed to the next plank. On a two tone deck it's not so much of a problem because you always have the deck seams between the colors.

75 stang,     You are correct about Titebond for the plugs.   They will stay in and you can get them back out if need be.

5200 for plugs? Come on! I can imagine what kind of a mess that would be!   And, you wouldn't be able to shave them off for at least 4 days.

Hey, If you find 2part Wood Bleach, let me know. We always used KleanStrip other alternative is Oxalic Acid.

you had to be tired of screwing all afternoon...look at it this way i usually read every post, always looking to learn, and i just couldnt pass on that one

im catching up, spending the day at home, watching the snow. dont pound to hard, you'll go blind

Plugging away...

Pete, DRCC,

we did what we could fitting up the boards but there are still a few gaps between the boards here and there. we bedded them all in 5200 and most of the seams have a little 5200 between them. The question is this, the couple gaps that are left, should i fill them with 5200? I would think they would be better off with flexable 5200 in them than varnish or famowood filler. the couple of split outs from the plugging and screwing would probably be best taken care of with the famowood that will take some stain I think.

The book is great but it does not really address imperfections and i am an imperfect carpenter. Im starting to get a bit nervous about the finish, I dont know what to expect...

Gaps? where?   From the upper pics, looks like you already hit em with 5200.    But, you're right, on the Famowood, never in seams, good for plugging woops.   I'd do all the 5200 first, if you're worried about getting it in the grain, mask it off.

Did you ever find 2 part bleach? Clorox won't do much to wood.
I've never used CPES over Paste wood filer stain.   Are you spraying the CPES?

You should have an equal gap the full length of the plank.

DrCC wrote: Gaps? where?   From the upper pics, looks like you already hit em with 5200.    But, you're right, on the Famowood, never in seams, good for plugging woops.   I'd do all the 5200 first, if you're worried about getting it in the grain, mask it off. Did you ever find 2 part bleach? Clorox won't do much to wood. I've never used CPES over Paste wood filer stain.   Are you spraying the CPES? You should have an equal gap the full length of the plank.

The gaps that are left are small ones that i did not get enough 5200 in when we set the boards, not very deep but the 5200 did not make it all the way to the top. I was trying so hard to not make a huge mess i probably went just a little light on the goo.

We did find a bleach product, I dont have it here yet my wood finish guy hs it at his shop experimenting/practicing on the tails right now.

I have been rolling on the cpes so far. I have only donr the bottom and frames that way and the back side of the side boards. we are discussing spraying the stain and varnish but have not come to a final decision there yet. A few test pieces are inthe works to determine how we go.

I appreciate the input.

I am not looking to reinvent the wheel, just get through this. I really suck at brush painting though. I wonder how the airless sprayer would work, its great for heavy materials but probably has the same finish problems at the HVLP gun.

The other question we have been pondering is weather or not to varnish the sides before we flip it or wait untill the topside is all done and stained then varnish it all at once. any thoughts?