Andrew O’Neill, director at O’Neill Shipwrights at Gold Coast City Marina & Shipyard, is working on a massive teak deck project aboard the 60-metre motor yacht, Oceana.
With his team of seven craftspeople, Andrew has worked to exact templates to pre-fab the decking in Sydney, which will be freighted to the vessel located on the Gold Coast in two stages.
“It’s a significant project,” he explains of the complete replacement of teak decks, including foredeck, bridge deck and sundeck – all the upper levels.”
“It’s a very detailed piece and requires not only technical skill and precision, but the right glue for the job.”
The main challenges on the project include the sheer volume of materials required.
“It took a lot of time organise the large volumes of products and materials to undertake the works,” Andy explains. “For example, we have approximately 7,100 lineal metres of teak decking, each hand selected, cut to shape and then laid, as well as 168kg of Sikaflex 290 dc deck caulking, 450kg of Techniglue R60 and 170-square-metres of substrate panelling. It’s a massive job.”
To put it in perspective, the talented craftspeople will be replacing approximately 7.5 kms of teak, handling it with the care it deserves as a costly material and using the highly reliable Techniglue R60 adhesive for bonding.
“We have always used Techniglue because it’s so easy to work with, easy to apply and we never have issues. It’s the best epoxy glue on the market, it has great working times with both the slow and fast hardeners and never lets go. I’ve been using it for years and will continue to do so as it has the best results.”
Techniglue R60 from ATL Composites is a high strength adhesive suitable for bonding structural elements fabricated from timber, fibreglass, concrete and metal.
R60 is available with a choice of hardener speeds, and the thixotropic nature of the adhesive provides good gap-filling and hold-up on vertical surfaces.
Techniglue R60 has approval for VOC Compliance under the specification of the Green Building Council of Australia/Green Star Office Design V3 IEQ-13.
It’s also available in a convenient, self-mixing cartridge pack making mixing and application quick and mess-free.
O’Neill’s team are manufacturing the teak decks to templates at their NSW factory and then flat-packing and freighting the pre-made decking to the Gold Coast team for the installation.
“Navigating this project throughout the current COVID-19 outbreak and Sydney lockdowns has made this job extremely tricky,” he continues. “We have employees from all over Sydney, so taking into account LGA lockdowns and compulsory testing, it has been a challenge to manage.
“We’ve been doing our best to keep the project on time and meeting deadlines while also following all the NSW government guidelines and constraints. We love working on large projects like these and love the challenges that they present daily.”
The project is due for completion in October and is currently halfway through. Concurrently, the O’Neill Shipwrights team is working on a complicated refit on board a classic Warren motor yacht, installing custom-designed parquetry flooring and stairs complete with fibre optic lighting.
“Of course, we will be using Techniglue to secure the parquetry flooring to the fibreglass deck substrate. It’s a premium product and from experience, we know it’s going to last.”
For more, see: https://oneillshipwrights.com.au/about-us/ and https://atlcomposites.com.au/category/1/Adhesives
