1946 Chris Craft Bright U22 Deconstruction Continues

Finally! I expressed the hope that we had unearthed all travesties committed by prior “restorer(s)” in the narrative to the last video. Wrong!

I was working on the ’49 Lyman Leader late yesterday when I heard, “#$%#@! I cannot believe it!” from where John was working on the ’46 U22.

Seems our “restorer” was as lazy as he/she was inept. One of the splash rails must have needed replacing, but why fabricate a correct, exact copy when you can dig into your pile of parts and find one taken off some other boat that was, well, almost the same?

Besides the two rails are opposite one another, and once the rub rail is installed, who will ever notice? Hmmm…

As the other original one has been all but destroyed from all the fasteners that have been run through it over the decades must be replaced, John will fabricate two new ones, a matched pair to be sure.

He has finally deconstructed the transom and transom corner framing as far as we need to go, the rationale for which he explains in the clip.

Our hope? Deconstruction is behind us, and fabrication will commence before we leave tonight. I may be unwittingly playing Pollyanna, however, as we have yet to release all of the bottom frames or the chine frames we must replace.