Continued from Pool restoration pt2
Now that the plaster was clean, the weak parts removed and cracks exposed I was ready to deal with them. I ordered a few different kits of materials; staples and epoxy.
I went with two kinds of staples, basically to reinforce the areas that I was worried may be weak and eventually crack again.
Carbon fiber from Leaktools
Untitled by bradisdrab, on Flickr
Steel from Torquelock – these ones interest me the most since they are engineered to apply pressure to the crack in addition to holding it.
I planned these out where I thought they could do the most good;
Masonry cutting disks in my angle grinder worked well for the countersink, but after drilling for a solid day and having my hands go numb I realized why a regular drill even with a good masonry bit is not the best way,
So I ran to Harbor freight and picked up a rotary hammer drill, which was AMAZING, so much better! Made the rest of the drilling a breeze in comparison. It was like the difference between when I was chiseling by hand vs when I got the air chisel.
A lot of staples… just cutting, drilling, and plotting them all out first;
Might have been overkill for some places, but figured its better that way, than not doing a spot and having that be where it re-cracks;
The staples were set with a special epoxy;
Starting with all the carbon fiber ones;
Then the steel ones, the epoxy is harder to see since its just on the inside, but it was applied to the posts and face surface, then pressed into place. After that I twisted the cam to apply more pressure by drawing the posts closer together;

