In May of 2016 I laid down the fiberglass on the starboard side deck. For some reason, I never got around to doing much more. Now, two and a half years later, I figured it was about time to get back to work and finish this project to prepare for painting. If you’d like to see where we left off that day in 2016 check out Fiberglassing The Deck. There you will see I was able to lay down all the fiberglass but I never got around to sanding or fairing.
I started out by sanding down the entire area. Epoxy doesn’t love UV exposure so I wanted to sand pretty aggressively just to make sure I was working with a strong substrate.
Once sanded down I cleaned the area with xylol to make sure it was completely clean and ready for another layer of epoxy.
I then mixed up a batch of un-thickened epoxy and put down a layer with a brush. While that cured I added some small pieces of fiberglass in areas that I felt like could use another layer after the aggressive sanding. I applied these with a big batch of thickened epoxy using colloidal silica and a small amount of 404 high density adhesive filler. I applied this with a brush and a west system 809 notched spreader and tried to get the epoxy as level as possible.
Once this fully cures I will do another round of sanding and then mix up a batch of epoxy thickened with 407 low density filler to fair the deck and prepare it for paint.
