Not a Nautique, But a Cool Boat Project None the Less ( 1960 Chris Craft )

[NautiqueJeff]

If you have some time it would be well worth your time to look over this thread.
https://www.correctcraftfan.com/foru...ne-restoration

I'll be seeing that boat this week. I've been in it before, and I am glad it went to someone close to me so I can still ride in it sometimes!

[Stevemo14]

It looks like a nice boat, I only read the first and last pages though. I see why they would want it. Kinda wish mine was a Correct Craft, but free is free.

[gary s]

I've ridden and drove it and even towed my Mustang after Quinner broke it. It is a beautiful boat but your always worried about it. It's just like when you were a kid and you wondered why your mom yelled when you put your feet up on the furniture. Was looking forward to him restoring the very first Nautique but it wasn't meant to be.

[Stevemo14]

So I did some more work this weekend on the wood boat ended up taking out what seemed to be 700 screws, and that was just for 1/2 of the bottom.

I started by exposing all the screw heads. I had to use a rotabroach, standard drill bits, compressed air, and dental picks to clean out the screw heads.



I got the planks on one side all off and exposed the plywood.




The plywood was not in all that bad of shape, but its going to be replaced. The fames all look to be in good shape so far too.




The other side will hopefully come off next weekend, and then the real fun starts.

[bturner]

That's a heck of a lot better than what I remember working on back in the 70s. You may get off with pretty much more of a refresh than a rebuild.

[SilentSeven]

You say plywood....as in....are the bottom 'planks' made from plywood?

Cool project....looking forward to watching progress.

[Stevemo14]

The bottom planks are Mahogany. There is an inner plywood skin that the goes between the frames and the Mahogany. If you look at the pics I just posted, the bronze painted planks with the writing on them are the 1/2" thick Mahogany outer planks. The plywood is the blond looking layer.

Depending on the year of boat you have, you could have plywood as the inner skin, or you could have opposing ( on a 45 degree angle of the outer planks ) 1/2" planks.

All the bottoms had a fabric "waterproofing" between the inner and outer wood, no matter which type of inner you have, plank or plywood. You can see a piece of it on the 4th pic down. In my boat they only put the fabric on the plywood seams.

[SilentSeven]

The bottom planks are Mahogany. There is an inner plywood skin that the goes between the frames and the Mahogany. If you look at the pics I just posted, the bronze painted planks with the writing on them are the 1/2" thick Mahogany outer planks. The plywood is the blond looking layer.

Got it! Now I see it. Interesting...never knew this was a construction technique.... So in the rebuild the mahogany gets reused and the plywood gets replaced?

[Stevemo14]

In my case, the Mahogany is getting replaced also. the boards were rotten in spots, and had shrunk too much to be reused. the gaps were just too big and they would have never swelled enough to seal again. I am going to use them as patterns for the new boards that I will have to fabricate. If the bottom was just leaking, but the boards were still good I may have been able to reuse them. I cannot imagine trying to get all the screws out without damaging the boards to the point they would be reusable again. It took about 20 hours just to get the port side off without being all too careful.

[Stevemo14]

I finally uploaded the video of flipping it over to you tube if you wanna check it out.

https://youtu.be/ozrWlRd7fnE

[Stevemo14]

Another weekend, and the other half of the bottom is off. I also took off the Chine Boards on both sides, and also 2 side boards that were damaged. 1 piece of frame needs to be remade, but it has no verticals on it, so its easy.

Next is fill all the screw holes with toothpicks and gorilla glue, and sand all the frames to get ready for CPES sealing.

[Stevemo14]

Didn't get quite as much done this weekend as I wanted. It was cold, and I had to pay my shop rent "help my buddy with farm projects". On that note, working on a horse pasture heated waterer in 8 degree weather isn't the smartest thing to do.

What I did get done was turn the boat into what I can only describe as a "**** Raiser"




As you can see I filled all the screw holes with hardwood toothpicks. Next weekend will be using the multitool to cu
t them all off, and then starting to sand the all the frame, rids, and support boards for sealing.

[SilentSeven]

Wow. Now that's a picture! Was it tedious or did you get your zen on and live the moment?

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

[Stevemo14]

In all I think I spent about 9 hours gluing them in. I had to take a few breaks because my whole arm would go numb after a while. I guess pushing in toothpicks over and over again, isn't good for your circular system. I had my buddies help for about an hour, and when his hand went numb he was out.

Mostly is was just getting in a groove. Dip in glue, put in hole, dip the next in glue, put in hole. Most of the holes took 3 picks to fill. some took more. And, Gorilla Glue is a pain in the @$$ to get off your fingers.

Just goes to show how many screws hold these bottoms together.

[Stevemo14]

Did a bit of work over the last few weeks. I sourced the wood, and got it split. I ended up with a bunch of 8/4 and 6/4, so I took it to a sawmill to get that done.

After that the real fun started. Fabrication time.

First I made the damaged frame section .


Next was CPESing everything. This stuff stinks by the way, but it makes it shiny


Next was patterning the plywood sub-bottom



Next I applied Mahogany 5200 to all the frames and nailed the plywood to the bottom.



The light colored wood below the plywood is epoxy wood filler. I had some rot that I had to repair.