Restoring Chris-Craft Boats to their Original Beauty
There’s five coats of paint on the bottom to give it a good stable bottom that will last for years. The paint is an anti-microbial base paint which keeps fungus from growing on the bottom. I then turn it back upright, level the boat to keep it true and straight, and install the front stem. Next, it’s time to start cutting and fitting the side planks by steaming them to fit.
After roughy cutting the bottom planks, I have to soak them for 10 days before steaming them. One plank take one to two hours to steam. It’s a slow process, but very rewarding in the long run. After I have all the planks bent, I have to let them set for two weeks to dry out before I sand them to fit. I then dry fit the entire bottom and pre-drill all the holes. Next, I remove the bottom and add a layer of 5200 to water proof it, in-bed the bottom planks and screw them all in. There are a lot of screws; the average bottom takes approximately 2500 screws. The last step requires the bottom to be sprayed with water and covered to keep it wet for a week.
This was a real time consuming project, but in the end, worth every minute. Next week, we start steaming and bending the bottom planks.
This one has taken me over 10 months. I will post pictures of the project over the next month.
