Stripping her bottom completely was absolutely the right choice. Were you to navigate back to an earlier video, you would here me expressing virtual glee around how clean and oil-free our 1947 Chris-Craft U22’s bilge is/was.
Wrong!
She’s over seventy. Her bottom had never been released until today. Let this be a lesson to all of us.
Even if her engine never leaked, and even if no one spilled oil when sucking it our of the filler pipe, just regular use translates into goo, grease, grime, oil and God knows what else finding its way into the bilge. Everything gets coated and more so over the decades.
As this clip testifies, her framework is a greasy mess. Never could it hold paint. Once we finish stripping everything, we will reach for our Simple Green Industrial Degreaser and use literally gallons of it virtually full-strength cleaning and scrubbing. Then all surfaces will be coated in Sandusky Chris-Craft Mahogany Bilge Paint.
Thanks to a butt joint at about amidships, we will only release the aft section of chine plank, which will expose the chine frame and ends of the two aft bottom frames.
Releasing/replacing the center transom frame means first releasing all three, not just the bottom, transom plank.
Anthony has now released the port-side bottom planking, thereby exposing similarly greasy, grimy frame members.
Onward…