I recently took over a partially completed stripper much the same way. Started by an inexperienced builder and let sit for seven years. I finished stripping the deck and when I commenced to fair and sand it started falling apart. The strips he had placed just started coming unglued. He had grossly over beveled the strips and they were only held together by a sliver. I glued sacrificial pieces of wood to the outside to stabilize it and then pulled the unglassed deck from the forms to fill huge gaps under the deck before returning it to the forms for re-sanding and finally glassing the deck. Then there was the nightmare of sanding the mess I had made of the inside of the deck with thickened epoxy to deal with. The original builder's wood choices were ash and cedar which don't sand well next to each other so that was another issue I have fought from the onset.

I nearly scrapped the project at each setback and finally got to the point that I had too much time involved to stop. I just wish I had of never taken on the project because it would have been far faster and easier to just start from scratch.

On the bright side: his deck design is sharp and I can't wait to see it finished.

Kyle T.