finally getting some pics sorted out, bad habit of using my cell for pics because of convenience but beecause its an old flip phone i have to bluetooth them to my tablet them tether to my home PC then put on usb stick to take to shop lol


wayyyy back on page one there was some pics up the liner during initial assessment, nearly identical to Jons above. Heres what we found and what was done to correct it. . . ..



Whole liner had to be cut into small pieces and literally each piece pried out. This is done because some areas the Plexus is still well bonded and you do not want to damage the parent hull laminate.

The Lancelot wheel of death (as i like to call it lol)
the green thing is a 12V chainsaw sharpener as this thing needs sharpening every few minutes of use.

Plexus is very tough to remove a grinder is useless and the material needs to be shaved or milled in some way. I found the Lancelot did well as did a cheap Skil hand planer. Any way you approach it . . . . its a pain lol. Get comfy with some headphones, gonna be in there a while lol.

You can see in the one pic how thick and porous it is, keep in mind this stuff is for a bond not a filler. They just spooged it in without regard . . . . I cant believe how nice the rest of the boat is put together but how poorly this part of it is

getting to the bottom of it, through all the Plexus we found the actual bottom of the boat. The skin laminate of the hull was so thin i am sure if i tried i think i could actually kick a hole in it right exactly under where the motors sit . . . .


after all the Plexus is gone we ground and leveled the surface glass in prep a core and new superstructure.
Everything gets prepped to 36 grit, best possible bond.

The strakes needed to be filled to make the new core uniform and level. Strakes were filled and the leveled then laminated over. You can see in the one pic there is a small square of fiberglass cloth with just the edge wetted and bonded. I do this to test my new bond to the old surface. There was Plexus smeared all over and even though its all been removed i always like to test to make sure there is no residual left over. Its a simple test but tells me a lot . . .

ok, THIS is how much Plexus actually gets removed :D

the parent hull surface gets three layers below the core. One layer of 1708 45/45, one layer of 1808 0/90 and one more layer of 1708 45/45. This gives me a very comprehensive quad orientation of fabric.

Setting new core throughout and three more layers of the above schedule (1708 ,1808, 1708).

new stringer (where the hollow busted up old ones were). The new liner is a hybrid that ties good sections of the old perimeter it with a new grid. The short ones are secondary stringers to support the running surface, mine key in at the front back and were fully encapsulated.

The floppy lookin white stuff is peel ply. I put that on as a last laminate to get it a nice uniform finish. Its a bit of a pain because it does not like non flat surfaces but its worth the effort. It has a release agent in it and it got pulled out after cure leaving a nice final surface needing little more then gelcoat to finish it off . . .

i will put more up this week as i get them sorted, its late lol . . . .

Wow Dave I pray to god I don't have to go that far!

is it overbuilt? . . . i dont understand the question :confused: . . . . :D . . . .

Hate to say it Jon but i dont see any other way to deal with it and achieve all the goals. If you do not expose the entire sole of the bilge you will have miltiple sections of unsupported (thin) running surface . . . .

I am praying that I do not have to remove all that stuff. Based on our phone conversations I am not optimistic but time will tell if I can come up with something...

not trying to stir the $hit,but has Formula reached out to anybody thats having issues? (Question asked by boatnt)


Below is the response I just received from Scott Smith at Formula....Certainly not what I ever would had thought...Very disappointing. Frankly they have slid this under the rug. Screw opening "Pandora's box"...they are blowing the fact they made a mistake at manufacturing off and will not stand behind it. This has nothing to do with warranty as far as I am concerned. this has everything to do with standing behind mistakes....NOT HAPPY !!!!


Good morning, Chris,

I did forward your pictures to the other people on my end, and nothing has changed. The age of the boat precludes any sort of warranty coverage. The best we could have done is have you deliver the boat to us at your expense and charged you to do the work that Glass Dave is currently doing to the boat. I will let my supervisor know that you have sent another inquiry, but honestly, I do not see another way forward at this point. The boat is now 17 years old and the reality is that we cannot cover boats indefinitely. The boat long outlasted its then-five year structural warranty, and wear and tear will eventually affect most any product.

I’m sure this is not what you wanted to hear this morning, but this is where it stands. I wish you the best with your project and I will be happy to provide you with advice or information in any other regard for the boat.

Best regards,

Scott Smith

Formula Support

Definitely not the customer support that I would expect from Formula, I have made a career in the high pressure air compressor industry and I am very judgmental on customer service that other industries offer based on my experience in the after sales world. I agree with you that warranty has nothing to do with a manufacturing oversight and should be handled different from Formula. The fact that you purchased a Formula for the reputation of high quality and long lasting hulls should be enough for them to provide your case with more attention than brushing it off as an issue that is outside of the original factory "structural" warranty. Wear and tear has no effect on the obvious absence of proper hull construction/adhesion that was discovered during Glass Dave's repair. I am disappointed in hearing their response and I hope you can work towards a full resolution with them. The noisy wheel gets the grease in my opinion and I think you should still pursue restitution for your trouble. On a side note, that is some extremely sexy glass work and I look forward to seeing the finished product this summer!

Now I want to clarify that I am not trying to cause a sh$t storm with my post. I am merely bringing to the forefront the response from the manufacturer I received. Am I pleased with it, NO. I feel that Formula should have gotten more involved with the process. They have been given all the evidence that there was a quality control issue at manufacturing. They chose to not get involved. I never expected Formula to fix my boat for free or hand me a stack of cash... I expected them to involve themselves into the process of repairing this boat by speaking "tech", "engineering"... show some care...not just say " its out warranty and we are not assisting you". Send me a freakin Tshirt....lol.

Formula as far as I am concerned has dropped the ball. They are a fabulous boat manufacturer....I would have not bought anything else. They are not showing their support for our loyalty of their brand.... As a business owner, regardless of time, if I have a client come to me whenever with a concern, issue, whatever...I tend to it and make sure they know I care and are willing to some sort of reality help them with their concerns.....:asskiss: DID NOT GET THAT FEELING....:throw:

Free T-Shirt would be awesome!

YOU GOT A FREE T-SHIRT! WTF I better make a call today! Chris, your post above makes me want to ask you a question because I was going to call them up to ask them some myself. Have you or glass dave asked them for advice on the repair? Have you asked them if we can call them up and get some engineering help in the repair. Not cash, not product just some sound advice to make sure we are not missing anything? For me it would be amazing if they could get some of their engineers involved to help us out with some time anyhow? Just wondering if that was ever proposed to them specifically?

Pretty easy to interpret that as Formula intends for their boats to have a structural life of only 5 years. Good to know.

I have a 2000 - 382 and it definitely has the plugs in the hull in the engine bay.
Possibly they were used for quality control, to check the plexus bond, and not necessarily used a repair point in every boat?
It would be an interesting question to ask Formula next time you speak with them.
I'll have to pop them all and have a closer look, now I have the engines out.
I have one missing and from memory it looks to more of an inspection point than an injection point, but I'll have to have a closer inspection.

[IMG]http://i1278.photobucket.com/albums/...pselrl15zf.jpg[/IMG]

Jon, To answer your question, YES. I spoke with Scott Smith at Formula last June when we initially found the issues. At the time I had the boat at a repair shop in Annapolis , MD. They were attempting to figure out what happened and I with the shop were in constant communication with Formula....Did they help...NO. Not at all... Was told then to bring the boat to us and we will try to fix it....at a completely ridiculous cost to me of course. They walked around in circles giving possible causes and stating that we had delamination issues.... After realizing that the fellow that had my boat in Annapolis didn't know what he was doing and Formula had no intention to help figure it out without the boat going to them, I had the boat sit on it's trailer thru the summer at my house till I took it to Glassdave in November when Dave was able to take it into his work rotation. Dave and I had communicated and figured out our game plan back in July of last year. Dave has not had any communication with Formula...Genius has figured it out all by himself...lol

Chris

Hope you find no issues. Do not really think I'll be communicating with Formula anytime soon...

Chris

Good point...kinda sad,.... Don't really think that is the case but agree that what Scott wrote doesn't give much strength to their cause.... Makes me think of Washington Dc's slogan on their license plates....."Taxation without representation"....:wizard:

I'll bet Formula consulted their legal team and were advised to do nothing.

By helping one boat owner in a small way would be a great PR exercise and a nice goodwill gesture but it would also be an admission of fault. It would send the message that they had made a manufacturing mistake and would open the floodgates to hundreds and hundreds of wary customers with all sorts of complaints related or unrelated. Imagine how many owners would come forward asking for assistance.

Sounds like a tough business decision, made to avoid setting any precedent that could cost the company a lot of money and legal problems.

I admire the attitude you two guys have adopted in dealing with the issue, get it fixed, cop it on the chin and enjoy your much improved boats.

As for asking Formula if they could help with any advice on the repair or other things to be aware of? I'd ask Glass Dave, I get the impression he knows more than they do.

Good luck guys, soldier on and thanks for the informative threads.

RR

i require no direction or advice from anyone . . . . lets face it you and i both know how they attempted to correct the problem. I believe in the very beginning of the issue Chris did seek advice and direction from Formula or at least the original shop was seeking this info. At that point i was contacted as the original shop had stalled waiting for correspondence that never came. My position is, while input would be appreciated, it is most certainly not required on my end and would only be used in making my decision on how best to approach this. Honestly, having an engineering background myself, i doubt any useful input could come from that end of it anyway. This could only be corrected by an analytical approach of surgically removing affected areas to a point where it could then be systematically reassembled and corrected. The problem is and was the disconnect between design, engineering, implementation, quality control, etc. As i have said before it is an extremely nice boat throughout . . . . except for fifty two inches of it:). What is interesting is the issue is a combination of many small things that added up to one big problem.


but yeah . . . i want a T shirt to :)

Dave I was not implying that YOU oh great Picasso of Fiberglass needed the help. I was interested if Formula offered to help in the process. Mostly I was thinking the other guys or if I had called them for example. I am currently trying to get an answer on the Plexus question you and I had talked about but the more I think about it that will not work with the way that you and I have talked about doing our repairs (based on my reading of different white papers anyhow).

Interesting to note that your liner is quite different then the one in the 353. Looking at that and Chris' i cant imagine how big of a pain in the azz it is to lay up in the mold. I was surprised to see how thick it was in some areas as i was cutting it out but further down the road i noticed some of those areas that were upwards of a half inch thick were nothing more then chop mat and maybe three layers of 1808 or some kinda uni glass and LOTS lots resin. The liners have a very inconsistent build in the complex areas where several features meet, what i found was lots of air voids and many "cut to fit on the fly" pieces plopped in a mold without much attention to detail . . . .

oh i know Jon, actually when i re read my post i saw it kinda sounded like i was directing it back toward you when neither of us were directing anything towards anybody . . . err . . .something like that lol. . i figured I'd chat with ya and straighten it out later :D . . . .

Just a little levity to keep Chris and I from finding the closest tree with a large branch to hang ourselves from!

Or going POSTAL....:waffen093:....lol.

ok well I have no stake in the game here but everyone knows how I support Formula because of the support I have received, but let me be clear my stuff was small potatoes compared to this,

My thought is this, the OP was clearly not looking for a handout, but help in this, help in the way of opinions, options, a simple sense of direction, As I sit on the outside watching this evolve and a CLEAR attempt bye the OP not to turn this into a bash all on Formula I surely expected those results from Formula in that form, I am very disappointed at the response according to OP. When I first read this I decided anything less then a hands on "look" was a clear disappointment, I believe Glassdave is within a reasonable distance from the factory to send someone out, and I can clearly see Dave has his process in check and a plan. while this boat is older IT IS not "OLD" in boat terms, and is the "SAME" as a current model in production, and I would think someone at Formula would be like holy crap we should at the minimum go out and look if Dave and the owner is willing to show us, maybe there is a issue here that we can address on our current boats for overall improvement of our brand.

As mentioned above the PR would be priceless.

Well said...

Chris

thanks I actually tried to sound intelligent LOL

The not helping out is what gets me. In fairness I have not reached out so I can not speak to the fact but I have no reason to believe that Chris would not be truthful.

It is an unfortunate situation, but as everyone has said it's a liability issue on Formula's end. Anybody with even a sliver of common sense and rational thought can see they screwed up the build on these particular boats. Instead of sending the boats to the chipper themselves, they put a band-aid on and hoped they would outlast the warranty, which they did. If they had any class they would offer to cover the cost of materials at least for the boats that obviously were sent out the door defective. Regardless if it has been 10, 17 or 27 years after production. Bottom line is they didn't know what they were doing, when they built the boat, or just flat out didn't give a hoot then either.

I would be interested in seeing some pictures of the superstructure forward of the rear bulkhead, if access and time allows. I'm curious as to why the issue was only in the engine room, or is that the only area Formula uses a liner? Is the rest of the boat built with conventional stringers/construction?

Has any manufacturer perfected the liner construction method? And is there really any way to know for sure a positive, secure bond has been made, when the liner itself prevents inspection after construction? We've all seen Baja didn't get the liner boats right from the start but it seemed like they sorted out the issues after some time, I suppose later model Formula's came out better as well after they learned from their mistakes...

If you watch todays process, on the Formula site, it would seem they do things the same. They have a video that shows the Plexus being shot out / into the hull in a pattern that appears to match up to the grid thing they then drop in. Would look like there is no attempt to get a total contact bond, only have it stick in some areas. Right or wrong, sure looks like that is the plan. Watch the video. How the claim to perfection can be boasted when you can not even see what you so perfectly did.

You reply why???

Oh I know why..... Never fast enough, eh?

I think this is a tough statement to swallow. First of all how do we know how they started out with the build process? I am not even sure we are talking about the same products. Plexus has changed a LOT since 1999. This was a very new process in 1999 for both Plexus as well as Formula and a number of other boat builders. Work times are MUCH longer now as well as the list of available products for different jobs is also longer.

:poopoo::poopoo::hitfan::hitfan::duel:Oh boy...

:hitfan::hitfan::hitfan:

:poopoo::poopoo:

Dave

I had those plugs on my old 292, always wondered what they were.

Yes, my 292 has those plugs too. Since seeing all of this I have very closely inspected the grid liner and have been under the boat knocking and pushing every area I can. Solid as a rock, but it's supported very well on the trailer, not like it would be on a couple dollies. Mine a 2006, so I'm hoping that they had it figured out by then plus the 292 is 6' shorter, so maybe easier to assemble(?) :pray:

It definitely does suck reading about these issues which nobody should have to be dealing with on a boat that demands such a premium. Good luck guys!

bet your glad you didn't investigate ,lol

Chris, I have been keeping up when I can on this thread and the monumental effort that is being put into making your boat better than new. I know you and Dave will succeed and she will be an awesome boat when you finish. Can't wait to see you on the water and celebrate all of your effort.

Treads

Figured I would share photos of the interior work compliments of XT Innovations.....Everything to this point was about repairs and structural issues now we are getting into the making the Fastech all new...More to come soon...
[ATTACH=CONFIG]554362[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]554363[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]554364[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]554365[/ATTACH]

We also received our updated "certificate of documentation" with the boats new name...Not sharing that yet.....lol Getting very excited. Glassdave is into the painting process....won't be too long now. Stay tuned.....

Chris