Back to Square One
25 October 2014 | Boatyard in Puerto Escondido
tearing up the deck ......... again
Earlier this week I was so happy that we didn't have to do the sticky fiberglassing of the deck ourselves -- but that was our 1st mistake because as we know: if you want something done right, do it yourself. And we normally do everything ourselves on the boat -- both to save money and to see that its done right.
The guy the boatyard hires to do fiberglass work came highly recommended and we saw some nice work he was doing repairing damaged boats. He has lots of experience and doing a deck should be a lot easier than repairing a big hole in the side of a boat.
But somehow it went terribly wrong. We tried to watch every step of the way, but on Monday when they started grinding the deck to prepare it we were told we should get away for a while because it was going to be a huge mess with fiberglass dust flying everywhere. When we returned a few hours later we were surprised they had finished grinding and in fact had cut all the fiberglass cloth. That was the picture I posted in my last blog -- when we were excited about the nice job he was doing.
He then continued to glass it down with the epoxy and we didn't think we needed to watch such an experienced craftsman every step of the way, but we should have.......
He finished it and it looked great -- just needed a little sanding around the edges. Until a couple spots sort of bubbled up the next day. Then they needed to remove those parts that didn't adhere properly and put a patch in. After the patches were dry they sanded again to even them out to the rest of the deck. But the next day more bad spots appeared and Terry and I went over every inch of the deck and to our horror there were many places that weren't adhering -- I could lift edges up with my fingernails!
They then decided they could grind out the bad spots and patch some more, but we didn't trust the integrity of any of it at that point and told them to take it up and redo it completely. And are we glad we did because we found with not too much effort we could pull up the layer of fiberglass in sheets! It hadn't been properly prepared -- or applied -- and the whole surface was basically just sitting there instead of becoming part of the deck as it should have.
So yesterday was spent doing a lot of waiting as Elvin, the yard manager. was busy with other problems and he is the only way we can communicate with the fiberglassing crew (our Spanish is as good as their English). Finally late in the day he informed them that it all had to be taken off to redo it. They would come in today and start grinding it off and work until it was done.
Well, there wouldn't be much grinding to do as we were able to pry off a good part of it. But this morning they didn't show up, so Terry had Elvin get some of his other workers to start in removing the mess. This time Terry is watching every step of the preparation and now they are sanding it down properly.
It remains to be seen if the fiberglass guys ever return, but at least we'll get the deck back to where it was before the royal screw up. So we've lost a week of work time as well as all the materials (fiberglass cloth and Epoxy). Now we're back to the beginning again.
What a roller coaster of a week it's been!