You know how they say a picture is worth a thousand words? As the seams on our fiberglass composite walls were completed yesterday, I took a series of 10 pictures to document the process. I put the photos into a folder on my smartphone, then accidentally deleted the folder! That’s right, ten thousand words worth of photos gone.

I looked at recovery apps last night, but in the end, I just had accept the fact that they’re gone. So, I’ll try to describe the process as best as I can. This was probably the most interesting part of the job. I had some misconceptions early on in the process of repairing the slide wall regarding how they were planning to do the work. I put this down to me talking to too many people here – many of whom only really knew a small part of the process. Also, communication was difficult with some workers as English is not their native language and technical descriptions can be lost in translation.

All of the screws and aluminum angle holding the panels tight as the adhesive dried were removed. After that, Armando used a pneumatic sanding disc along the length of all of the seams. He sanded through the fiberglass down to the plywood backing about a half an inch on either side of the seam.

After cleaning the seams again, he used a thick slurry made of milled (chopped) fiberglass and resin to fill the gaps in the seams. Then he cut strips of fiberglass mat – this is different than cloth. It wasn’t woven like cloth, the mat has the individual fibers in a random orientation. The strips were about an inch wide.

He saturated the strips with resin and then placed them over the seams. He used three plies of the fiberglass mat. Then the final layer was applied. This was individual strands of fiberglass – it was like the mat but shredded and loose. He saturated handfuls of fiberglass with resin then pressed it over the strips of mat. He used a special steel roller about a half inch in diameter to flatten the fiberglass/resin and ensure that no air bubbles were present.

This sealed the seams and made the sheets of fiberglass composite into one continuous piece. No filler or bondo was used – it’s all fiberglass. After the resin cured, he used a DA sander to smooth the seams. They’re so flat and smooth, I can’t feel the seam when I run my fingers over it.

Seams filled and ‘glassed

Finished seam smooth as glass

This is excellent workmanship and I’m very happy with the results so far.

Next they’ll have to install and seal the edge moldings and then we should be ready for primer and the paint shop.

We couldn’t ask for better weather here in Mesa, Arizona. Yesterday we had clear skies and the thermometer hit the mid-70s. It looks like we’ll continue to be in the 70s with a few clouds in the coming week, then it’ll warm up!

Donna will finish packing for her trip today and we’ll go out for dinner this evening. Tomorrow morning she has a 6am flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico then a commuter flight to Vieques. She’s leaving her laptop behind so she won’t be tempted to work while she recharges on the beach.

That means I won’t have my in-house proofreader and editor to review my posts for the next week. Or my personal chef. Yes, I’m going to miss my wife.