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At this point of the pond construction, we're gonna take the liner, and
we're gonna attach it to the skimmer faceplate, and give it a waterproof seal.
We're gonna show you step-by-step how to do it.
So, you can breathe easy during the process.
We're gonna show you some tips and tricks along the way.
Hopefully make your life a lot easier.
The first tip that I'm gonna have for you is this is it's a contractor tip actually.
This is our faceplate seal box.
We have it in a tote, in our truck all the time and
if somebody's getting ready to do a faceplate seal, they grab the face plate seal box,
and they have all the tools necessary to do that job.
We're installing the Helix pond skimmer today.
So the main tools we're gonna need is the Phillips screwdriver, 7'16" nut driver.
And then we have an awl inside here, so we can poke the holes and
find the holes where the bolts have to go through the liner.
Now when you get a pond kit, you'll get a tube of silicone for making the attachment.
Today we're gonna use a polyurethane sealant and a calking gun.
And one of the tricks that some people don't know is the calking gun has a little spout
cutter right here, and you can stick this guy in, cut the spout, and
then they have this cool little nail thing.
You can stick it in there and break the seal and you're good to go.
I'll show you how to do that in a second.
Here we go.
As you can see we have plenty of slack here, to make the connection.
And what we'll end up doing is I'm gonna reserve that slack down below the skimmer,
in case we wanted to make an adjustment later in the future.
So we're gonna pull it down like this and get that down, down to about here, but
I'm not gonna cut off that extra slack.
I'll leave it all down at the bottom.
Now one thing you wanna make sure is you wanna take that under layment and get that
tucked down low, because that's not gonna be as a part of the base plate attachment.
That can't be in the seal, otherwise it'll leak.
First thing I'm gonna do is take off all these bolts, and
then I'll get the area cleaned up.
Now that I have the faceplate bars off, I'm just gonna do a general cleaning with
the towel, wipe off most of the dust that's on here.
Once the dust is done, then I'm gonna do the initial dry run,
and we'll get everything fit into place before we break into our sealing.
Okay, once we have it across here we're gonna do a dry run with our awl.
With the awl we'll find that top hole.
Then pull out all the wrinkles once that's in.
Sometimes what I do if the signature boulder's too close,
it makes it a little tricky but well worth it.
So, that's nice and smooth.
I'll get my awl and I'll do the other bar up here.
Okay, all of our wrinkles are pulled out.
Now I will pull this apart, and I will do my final cleaning before I put my sealant on.
You mainly want all the dust and powder off there.
Now we can put on our sealant.
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So now that these two guide bolts are ready, and I know that I can just put them in place,
I'll set these back over here, and leave them hanging.
And I have it all cleaned up now, and what I'll do is I'll come through here and
I'll put my sealant on here, and then I'll just.
Put that down in there.
You don't need a lot on here.
You really don't. You just need a nice piece.
Get my first guide bolt in.
That first bolts in then, I'll smooth that across go for the other guide bolt.
Pull out any wrinkles, and then smooth this bottom piece apart.
And then I'm ready for the bottom bar.
There we have it, nice and smooth.
Now, I can line up this bottom bar.
Stick my awl in there for the guide hole.
Now all the bars are on.
Now, I can just run through and puncture all the holes with my awl, and
then come back in, and run all the bolts through and tighten them up.
Now once all these bolts are in place, you see I have them just pressed through there.
I haven't put any nuts on there.
Now, I'll come through and guide all the nuts on there.
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Now once you have all the bolts on here,
I'll just come through here and I'll hand tighten all these guys.
Once I have them hand tight, then I'll grab 7'16" nut driver, and
Phillips' screwdriver, and I'll tighten them down kinda like a gasket on a car, just.
I'll do each one a little bit, go all the way around the house, and then come back and
hit them again.
It's starting to look real good.
Okay so, I've gone around the entire one, one time.
And now I'm gonna come through here, and give it a more serious tightening.
And that should be it.
Last couple tips I wanna talk about is,
I just wanna make sure you don't have any wrinkles.
If you see a wrinkle in there, you're most likely gonna have a leak.
And you wanna make sure you don't have any of the under layment,
in between this liner and the face plate.
The under layment should be completely moved away, all together.
[NOISE] Okay, so I got them all, they all have, a, a serious tightening on there.
And then, I'll come through here with a razor blade.
And then, I'll cut the opening.
If you get this black polyurethane on your clothes, then you're gonna be in trouble.
You're gonna have a stain, that's for sure.
So there's that.
I'll run through here with my finger.
That's a, that's a wrap.
Cuz you see I left some slack here.
It's always nice to have slack, for future repairs on the pond or remodel or upgrades.
Always leave slack there.
We will put a rock in this place that is nice.
So, there you have the step-by-step instructions,
on how to do the face plate seal on the Helix pond skimmer.
It's really simple to do.
You know, the routine by now, if you have any questions at all, please post them in
the comment section below, and I'll get to each and every one of them.
I'm Eric Triplett, The Pond Digger, thanks for watching.
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