Well this weekend I am taking time off from the deck (still working on the railing) to do the MS Bike tour.  So if these posts helped at all, please consider taking a moment to pledge me at https://msofs.mssociety.ca/2009bike/Sponsor.aspx?PID=1129530&L=2.

 Thanks!  Graham Facer

Ok, Finally ready for the moment of truth - Gel-coat!

Gel coat is where you get to see if all you sanding and patching paid off with a beautiful deck!  My result?  I have a few issue to touch up (some spiky bits) and some less than pristine areas that were patched.  But overall the deck is flat, smooth (with some smooth lumps if that makes sense) and solid.

So here are the pictures:

This is the transition to the door.  I’ll have to caulk this part.

 Next:  Final Issues and thoughts and Attaching a Railing to a Fiberglass Deck.  Hopefully I’ll get to that this weekend.

OK,  After the patching I had a night of rain, this was actually a good thing as it gave me another day to lose the itch and rest my back… No wait it was a good thing because it allowed me to find the low spot of my deck which is always an issue when you convert a deck with slats to a solid deck.  Slat decks are built level (or close) and solid decks are sloped.  So if you are doing a fiberglass deck over a vinyl deck then you likely won’t need to do this step.

Anyhow, now that I knew where the low spot was I could add a drain there.  I chose a 2″ hole and approx. 3″ drain cover.  Large enough to work but still relatively small.

Once I cut the hole (make sure to check that there are no joists below!) I glassed the inside with some cloth tape.  It would have helped to have a 1″ brush here as the 2″ was too big and I ended up spreading the resin with a gloved finger.

I was still I little worried about the top so I end up doing a little more reinforcement when I did the gelcoat.

 Here is the end result (and a preview of the next post):

(note: the water can get under the drain on the sides too so it should work at any water level).

OK,  now its time to get itchy!  I forgot to ask to get a set of coveralls from the shop and boy did I regret that…

I actually forgot to take any photos of most of the patches I did but then when I was doing one final once over I found a bubble that I had sanded but not patched.

So for bubbles you need to sand out the actual bubble and then taper the hole back about 2 inches all around.  I was a little light on the taper and you do see it on the final layer.  In fact the big thing to remember is that everything will tansfer to the next layer (ie the finished deck) including the mat strands.  So if you are really picky then this is the layer to tackle it.

 Anyhow, I’m not that picky.. so here is the bubble repair.

The bubble sanded out. The surrounding area looks like a bubble because the sander roughs it up.

The patch and the bubble side by side (I did a little more sanding first).

The finished patch that will then need to be sanded flush to the surrounding surface. 

 Basically any bubble or object can be tackled this way.  It is also basically what you do if you need to repair your deck in 15 years.

 For ridges you just need to sand it flat.

 And then it rained….

After saturating the mat I had a number of issues.  In fact I might have just done a justice to most issue that can come up on that layer.  (I’ve never said that I am an expert craftsman - I am a just get by DIY’er).

 Here they are:

First a bubble on the cant but I was not too worried about that as I am covering it with flashing.  Instead I am taking a shot of a ridge right at the edge of the flashing.

Here is a bit of debris from a cherry tree in the yard that is underneath the mat.

Another issue on the cant.  After my close call with the resin almost hardening I rushed the rest of the cant and had a few issues.  Again most of them will be covered by the flashing.

A big high ridgethat I couldn’t get to sit.  Maybe a bubble in the foreground.  Note: I only went after bubbles that were big and solid.  I had some areas with a series of little bubbles (1/8″ diameter to 3/16″ diameter) that were not connected - those I just left.

An unsaturated corner.  You have to sand it all off and redo it.  This is what will happen if you run out of resin too.

Another Ridge…

I think this is a bubble/ridge combo.

Another unsaturated edge. This one was a pain and still looks bad after the gelcoat.

My worst series of bubbles on the deck.

How do you fix them.  Easy! I’ll show you how next time…

OK, the deck is prepped. I mentioned that the next step was to saturate the mat but that is not right. I did do a seal coat of resin first to make the deck waterproof and ensure that I did not have too much resin soaked up by the wood when I did the mat layer.

Unfortunately I did not take any pictures of that layer (it is straight forward and unexciting) and now its time to saturate the mat. This can be a fast and furious step and so I only have the one ‘action’ shot.

(I’m having an issue with my cheap roller cage here - I should have gotten a new one from the shop - they are much better and it mattered!)

Instead I’ll talk a bit about the process and some ‘if I had to do it again advice’.

1^st thing is that I did this deck ½ and half in the midday sun. I always tell people to avoid that but I thought I knew better…. Well the first batch that I used to brush on the cant start to gel and I had to very quickly roll it out. Even then it was touch and go as to whether it would spread. I guess I JUST made it. I can’t describe the mess it would have been if it had kicked on me.

After that we toned down the catalyst (Dennis was mixing for me) and we were OK for the rest of the deck (including the areas in the sun). What it did do was cause me to have a rush rush mentality for most of the rest of the deck.

One thing that I noted is that our mat is made of 2 layers and you can get air bubbles either against the wood or in between the two layers. It also caused a bit of a resin trap where I did my honey pours (pouring the resin on the deck before spreading it around). If I had to do it again I’d try and rig something up to get a wider, thinner spread on the pours – it may help to pour it out right above the deck rather than from 2′ high. I’m still not sure what would be best.

Anyhow, on to the process:

First, remember to sweep the deck before you layout the cut and fit pieces of mat or any junk that has fallen down under the mat will make a bubble. I could have swept a little later (or again) and I might have saved about 4-5 bubbles.

Second, Layout the mat. Try not to step on the mat and the now tacky deck as you will pull up some fibers and move the mat around if you do.

Third, Mix a very weakly catalyzed batch of resin and do the cant strip and anywhere the roller will not reach.

Fourth, start rolling. Make sure your helper is keeping tracking of how far the resin is going. A quick rule is to divide the deck in half or quarters and make sure that ¼ of the resin is doing slightly more that ¼ of the deck. You should have extra the resin should go a bit further.

Bubbles. In theory you can roll out bubbles or cut a hole to get them out. In practice I found that with the long roller handle I tended to be too far away to do that. If I had to do it again I would definitely get a bubble buster roller to have handy. It would have saved me a ton of time and itchiness (more on that later).

Overall, you just have to keep moving. You do what you can to the bubbles, ridges and and crap underneath but at some point you have to give up on some of them and continue on and deal with it afterwards.

I sure did…. More on that next entry.

Just a quick post to follow up on some information that I gathered at a recent home show.  I currently have a fellow that is working on a concept car and has been using foam to make the rough shape.  As he is planning to fiberglass the resulting model he needed to use a urethane foam (polystyrene foams melt - so they need to be coated first).  I this case I think he used the spray cans that you find at the home improvement store (Great Stuff or the like).  At the time I thought of nothing better but then at the home show I ran into some urethane insulation firms that spray insulation.  Now without a doubt they are more expensive but as they could spray a nice even coat of foam over any odd shapes (one of them had done some parade float work) they would save hours and hours of work on a project like this. 

 So food for thought if you have an odd shaped project that you are planning to fiberglass directly. Alternatively you could use styrofoam and cover it with an 100% solids epoxy before fiberglassing it with a polyester resin.  You could also paint it with latex paint but as latex can bead on the foam, epoxy is a better option.

 The firms I saw were Anta Insulation (anta@telus.net 604-338-9286) and Chinook Insulation (chinookurethane@telus.net 604-309-5972).

Hello, Due to some spambot that has targeted our blogs, we now require users to be registered and approved to leave comments.  If you have a general comment, you can e-mail us. 

 Thanks,

Graham

Well,  I think that I have come to an end to at least part of my VOIP experiment with Digitalvoice.ca.  Today I signed up to switch our main line to Shaw.  It is still an internet phone based phone so we will see if its better but it would be hard to be worse right now.  Now, it is not all the fault of digitalvoice.ca and I may end up having the same issues to an extent and I will be keeping one line and internet with digitalvoice as a second line and a 1-800 number (planned at least).   The fax remains on myfax.com and that seems to work very well.

 The problem today is that when you dial in to the Abbotsford number you get a busy signal (or you did - now they are trying to fix it and you get a number not in service message - Not Good!) but the forwarded number that is really mine (604-288-4236) works fine.  Its just the routing that is screwed up somewhere (apparently not digitalvoice.ca as they are calling the number provider - which sucks because they - whoever they are- seem to be slow at responding).  Now if it really is the number that is having issues I may have all the same problems with Shaw and then I will either have to 1) get another number or 2) see if I can live with the problems.

The long and short of it is, for a business, the number I was given is not reliable enough with this provider and so I have to switch.   And of course the fax was even worse - though again it may have been due to the number.  

 Conclusion?  Your experience may be different but if I were to do it again I would get 1 land line, 1 internet fax and then 1 VOIP line with internet.  And that’s what I’ll have at the end of this.  The cost higher than all VOIP but lower by far than all Land line.  For and all Telus solution I would be paying over 100 for internet and 1 line, but it will be about 96 for 2 lines, 1  1-800 number, 1 1-800 internet fax line and internet (which is better than my ADSL at home - running 2.5mbps). 

 Hope this helps and sorry if you can’t reach me today!

Well,  I thought I would pass along the most recent experiences.  I still haven’t gotten the fax to work and at this point I have given up and will likely shut that line down today.  ADSL is working very well but digitalvoice.ca is just reselling it for Telus so no real surprise there.  Phone service is OK but still not 100%.  A bit of a bad thing that happens occasionally is that it will keep ringing for the person you are calling for one ring - its a bit odd and puts the receiver off (I know because someone else here called my cell phone).

To replace the fax, I got an internet fax with a 1-800 number from myfax.com.  It works well so far - even receiving a fax over the VOIP line.  So for the little faxing I am doing I may just fax it to myself and then forward the resulting e-mail to another fax number.  Most everything else I’ll just fax from my e-mail which is a good thing when you have writing like mine!

PlasticWorks is also looking at moving both branches to a hosted PBX VIOP solution which we will likely test out before Christmas.  If we switch to that I may need to turf digitalvoice.ca’s service but we’ll see.