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Homemade water tanks.
Hey folks, Scotty here.
What I am planning is some custom water tanks and such to be made to fit inbetween two bulkheads. They will hold water for washing hands and such, not necessarily drinking water. Any suggestions as to what material and what adhesive/connectors to use to keep it watertight? I was thinking some of that bathroom wall material they sell at Home Depot, but would I use some kind of silicone, pvc cement, or would I have to weld it, and if so, how? Thanks for the input, Scotty |
Homemade water tanks.
If you mean that melamine coated masonite, forget it. OK for short term
exposure in a shower surround but constantly soaked in a tank the water will get through and turn the backing to mush. You may find some solid plastic stuff a few racks down the aisle at the Home Despot that will not absorb water. It is usually stuck to walls with Liquid nails or other construction adhesive but I have not found an adheasive that will stick to it reliably in a joint. If you can build the tank outside and install it a laid up polyester or epoxy FRP tank with a glued on lid would work. If you have access to an air compressor and want to learn something new for a little less money you can get a 4x8 sheet of 1/4" HDPE from a plastics distributor for about $65 and a plastic welder from Harbor freight for another $25. With a little practice on some scrap you can make a really nice tank almost any shape you want. (Curves are not easy though) Backyard Renegade wrote: Hey folks, Scotty here. What I am planning is some custom water tanks and such to be made to fit inbetween two bulkheads. They will hold water for washing hands and such, not necessarily drinking water. Any suggestions as to what material and what adhesive/connectors to use to keep it watertight? I was thinking some of that bathroom wall material they sell at Home Depot, but would I use some kind of silicone, pvc cement, or would I have to weld it, and if so, how? Thanks for the input, Scotty -- Glenn Ashmore I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com |
Homemade water tanks.
Glenn Ashmore wrote in message news:E0Slb.90613$sp2.84885@lakeread04...
If you mean that melamine coated masonite, forget it. OK for short term exposure in a shower surround but constantly soaked in a tank the water will get through and turn the backing to mush. You may find some solid plastic stuff a few racks down the aisle at the Home Despot that will not absorb water. It is usually stuck to walls with Liquid nails or other construction adhesive but I have not found an adheasive that will stick to it reliably in a joint. Thanks, that's what I thought. I found this: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=41592 but I am a little confused. Do you feed some type of volitile gas, or does it just shoot electrically heated forced air? Scotty If you can build the tank outside and install it a laid up polyester or epoxy FRP tank with a glued on lid would work. If you have access to an air compressor and want to learn something new for a little less money you can get a 4x8 sheet of 1/4" HDPE from a plastics distributor for about $65 and a plastic welder from Harbor freight for another $25. With a little practice on some scrap you can make a really nice tank almost any shape you want. (Curves are not easy though) Backyard Renegade wrote: Hey folks, Scotty here. What I am planning is some custom water tanks and such to be made to fit inbetween two bulkheads. They will hold water for washing hands and such, not necessarily drinking water. Any suggestions as to what material and what adhesive/connectors to use to keep it watertight? I was thinking some of that bathroom wall material they sell at Home Depot, but would I use some kind of silicone, pvc cement, or would I have to weld it, and if so, how? Thanks for the input, Scotty |
Homemade water tanks.
Backyard Renegade wrote: Thanks, that's what I thought. I found this: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=41592 but I am a little confused. Do you feed some type of volitile gas, or does it just shoot electrically heated forced air? Scotty That's it. Price must have gone up sense I got mine. You hook it up to an air supply and an element in the gun heats it to about 350F. It doesn't take much air. With some practice you can get a pretty decent weld. Especially for the price. Just be sure the material is very clean and use the proper rod. It has to be the same plastic as the base material. Clamp everything really well because you have to press the filler rod pretty hard to get it to blend with the joint and don't try to fill the joint in one pass. Make 3 or 4 passes to slightly overfill the seam and then trim off the excess. Two things I don't like about it. It has no temperature control so you have to fiddle with the air flow to get the right heat and it doesn't come with any tips. I would love a speed tip that holds the rod in the right position so you get more even beads but as little as I use it I don't want to pay $250 for a better model. -- Glenn Ashmore I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com |
Homemade water tanks.
You're a belt and suspenders guy right after my own heart, Glenn, so
I'm curious. You're satisfied that welded HDPE will stay together, long term, under the dynamic loading of water tanks? How big a tank before you run out of confidence? And where does the air compressor come in? Tell us more..... Jim Woodward www.mvFintry.com Glenn Ashmore wrote in message news:E0Slb.90613$sp2.84885@lakeread04... If you mean that melamine coated masonite, forget it. OK for short term exposure in a shower surround but constantly soaked in a tank the water will get through and turn the backing to mush. You may find some solid plastic stuff a few racks down the aisle at the Home Despot that will not absorb water. It is usually stuck to walls with Liquid nails or other construction adhesive but I have not found an adheasive that will stick to it reliably in a joint. If you can build the tank outside and install it a laid up polyester or epoxy FRP tank with a glued on lid would work. If you have access to an air compressor and want to learn something new for a little less money you can get a 4x8 sheet of 1/4" HDPE from a plastics distributor for about $65 and a plastic welder from Harbor freight for another $25. With a little practice on some scrap you can make a really nice tank almost any shape you want. (Curves are not easy though) Backyard Renegade wrote: Hey folks, Scotty here. What I am planning is some custom water tanks and such to be made to fit inbetween two bulkheads. They will hold water for washing hands and such, not necessarily drinking water. Any suggestions as to what material and what adhesive/connectors to use to keep it watertight? I was thinking some of that bathroom wall material they sell at Home Depot, but would I use some kind of silicone, pvc cement, or would I have to weld it, and if so, how? Thanks for the input, Scotty |
Homemade water tanks.
Backyard Renegade wrote:
Hey folks, Scotty here. What I am planning is some custom water tanks and such to be made to fit inbetween two bulkheads. They will hold water for washing hands and such, not necessarily drinking water. Any suggestions as to what material and what adhesive/connectors to use to keep it watertight? I was thinking some of that bathroom wall material they sell at Home Depot, but would I use some kind of silicone, pvc cement, or would I have to weld it, and if so, how? Thanks for the input, Scotty The to successfully welding polyethyelene is in melting not only the new material, but also the edge of the tank wall, so the new and existing material blend to become single mass. It takes a bit practice and skill to get it right, with no bubbles, and just enough of each material. So by the time you buy the heat welder, the sheets of poly, rods and practice scraps, you may find--depending on the size of the tank you want to build (and btw, the bigger the tank, the thicker the walls need to be to support the weight of the water...don't start with less than 1/4" for the smallest tank)--you may find it just as cheap to buy a tank. Check the Ronco Plastics (no relation to the Vego-Matic Ronco) catalog (http://www.ronco-plastics.com...they build top quality tanks for a very reasonable price, and have more than 400 shapes and sizes to choose from, including over 100 that are non-rectangular. I've yet to find very many boats they don't have a tank to fit. Peggie ---------- Peggie Hall Specializing in marine sanitation since 1987 Author "Get Rid of Boat Odors - A Guide To Marine Sanitation Systems and Other Sources of Aggravation and Odor" http://shop.sailboatowners.com/detai...=400&group=327 http://www.seaworthy.com/html/get_ri...oat_odors.html |
Homemade water tanks.
IF you do the weld RIGHT it will be about 80% as strong as the base
HDPE. The gun heats a stream of compressed air. About 8-12 psi and blows it into the seam. It is really welding not gluing so you have to make sure that the base material and the filler rod all melt together. Thus far I have welded up a 7 gallon grey water holding tank to fit inside the keel frame and a box to shield the back side of the watermaker control panel. I pressure tested the grey water tank to 5 psi and it held together so I am pretty confident of it. OTOH, I do not think I would try to weld up a 40 gallon tank or a any tank that I might not want to smell if it sprung a leak. :-) I was assuming that Scotty was looking for 10-15 gallon capacity tanks. When you start talking about bouncing 2-300 pounds of liquid around though I will leave that to a rotomolded tank. It works for HD polyethylene used in water tanks and some other thermoplastics but NOT for cross linked polyethylene used in fuel tanks or UHMW poly. Jim Woodward wrote: You're a belt and suspenders guy right after my own heart, Glenn, so I'm curious. You're satisfied that welded HDPE will stay together, long term, under the dynamic loading of water tanks? How big a tank before you run out of confidence? And where does the air compressor come in? Tell us more..... Jim Woodward www.mvFintry.com Glenn Ashmore wrote in message news:E0Slb.90613$sp2.84885@lakeread04... If you mean that melamine coated masonite, forget it. OK for short term exposure in a shower surround but constantly soaked in a tank the water will get through and turn the backing to mush. You may find some solid plastic stuff a few racks down the aisle at the Home Despot that will not absorb water. It is usually stuck to walls with Liquid nails or other construction adhesive but I have not found an adheasive that will stick to it reliably in a joint. If you can build the tank outside and install it a laid up polyester or epoxy FRP tank with a glued on lid would work. If you have access to an air compressor and want to learn something new for a little less money you can get a 4x8 sheet of 1/4" HDPE from a plastics distributor for about $65 and a plastic welder from Harbor freight for another $25. With a little practice on some scrap you can make a really nice tank almost any shape you want. (Curves are not easy though) Backyard Renegade wrote: Hey folks, Scotty here. What I am planning is some custom water tanks and such to be made to fit inbetween two bulkheads. They will hold water for washing hands and such, not necessarily drinking water. Any suggestions as to what material and what adhesive/connectors to use to keep it watertight? I was thinking some of that bathroom wall material they sell at Home Depot, but would I use some kind of silicone, pvc cement, or would I have to weld it, and if so, how? Thanks for the input, Scotty -- Glenn Ashmore I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com |
Homemade water tanks.
On Peggie's recommendation, i got a pair of Ronco tanks for my current
project. They are well made and reasonable in cost. If one of their tanks fits your space, there is no reason to fabricate your own. Peggie Hall wrote: SNIP Check the Ronco Plastics (no relation to the Vego-Matic Ronco) catalog (http://www.ronco-plastics.com...they build top quality tanks for a very reasonable price, and have more than 400 shapes and sizes to choose from, including over 100 that are non-rectangular. I've yet to find very many boats they don't have a tank to fit. Peggie - |
Homemade water tanks.
Scotty,
It sounds like what you were originally talking about is the relatively new 1/8"X4"X8" FRP panels, costing about $26, that are meant to replace the old 1/4 inch tile board. I have used a ton of it in the family restaurants for kitchens and bathrooms. When it is fresh it reeks of polyester so it should work good with epoxy, which is something you already do well. I have never built anything structural out of if but have attached things with epoxy with success so far. Some testing here is in order. A tank would obviously have to have stiffeners on the panels but so does an FRP hull. You might even be able to us the inside corner trim peaces to glue the tank together. I am using it to replace the crappy plywood and teak panels in my Irwin 37. I am going to epoxy it to 1/4" plastic to make new sliding doors for my hanging lockers. I just put a peace down on the floor of our commissary to see how well it fold up as flooring. In addition, the stuff works really well with wood working tools. I have cut it with a tablesaw, skillsaw, handsaw, bandsaw and router, I even scored a peace once with a boxknife (I was in a hurry) and snapped it. I hope this helps. Regards, Ron |
Homemade water tanks.
On 23 Oct 2003 07:41:49 -0700, (Backyard
Renegade) wrote: Hey folks, Scotty here. What I am planning is some custom water tanks and such to be made to fit inbetween two bulkheads. They will hold water for washing hands and such, not necessarily drinking water. Any suggestions as to what material and what adhesive/connectors to use to keep it watertight? I was thinking some of that bathroom wall material they sell at Home Depot, but would I use some kind of silicone, pvc cement, or would I have to weld it, and if so, how? Thanks for the input, Scotty Hi scotty I copied this from the rec.aviation.homebuilt group. It just got posted a couple days ago. The author is fairly well respected over there. Drew Dalgleish Riveted aluminum fuel tanks are smart. They're easy to build and superbly practical for the homebuilder since she can make them in whatever shape she needs. Most folks shy away from this fabrication technique due to the high cost of Pro-Seal, still listed at more than $8/oz in the Aircraft Spruce catalog (P/N 09-38500 "2oz sealant" $17.85). But now that Thiokol's patents on polysulfide sealants have expired seam-sealers that do equally well are available for pennies per pound instead of dollars per ounce. Life Industries is one such source. They make a line of polysulfide sealants for marine applications, including a two-part fuel-proof formulation used to calk fuel tanks & bilges. With aluminum, the sealant-bonding question - getting the stuff to stick - is a no-brainer. Go to your local Home Depot and buy a quart of JASCO ‘Prep & Primer.' Or buy a quart of ‘AlumaPrep' from Aircraft Spruce. Same stuff, chemically speaking. Of course, the aviation-grade' alumaprep is dramatically more expensive. Degrease then etch the panels you want the sealant to adhere to for thirty minutes in a solution of ‘Prep & Primer.' (The strength of the solution isn't critical. Anything from 1:1 to 3:1 works fine on clean aluminum. If using Alumaprep, follow their dilution instructions.) ‘Prep & Primer' is a phosphoric acid etchant made specifically for galvanized and aluminum surfaces. Scrub the etched surface with a Scotch-brite pad and neutralize with boiling water. The result will be a matte white finish. To insure greater integrity of your rivet line, you may wish to use countersunk rivets. The dimple adds depth to the rivet line, making it stiffer without increasing its weight. The 120 degree dies you need for poppers are available from Airparts in Kansas City (www.airpartsinc.com) for about six dollars. And from other folks, too. The dies are used with your regular pop-rivet gun. Of course, if you have a lathe it takes only a few minutes to make such a set of dies and even un-hardened they'll last for several plane's-worth of dimples. If you've never used flush-head poppers, run a few rows of sets before tackling the tank. The dimpling process ENLARGES the hole. The geometry here is subtle so be cool, work at the pilot-hole level, opening up the hole to rivet-size after you've dimpled & fitted the row. If you don't, the rivet will be too loose to pop; it'll just pull out. Be VERY careful when deburring as you'll be working on a corner instead of a flat. A file may be a better choice than a regular deburring tool. (These factors have probably contributed to the Conventional Wisdom that sez flush-head poppers don't work very well. They work just fine, but only when they fit the hole.) With a pitch of about an inch aluminum poppers provide more than adequate strength for this application. Indeed, the stiffness of steel flush-head poppers dictates a minimum metal-depth of about forty thou. Anything thinner and you're liable to pull the popper through the hole before it can form a large enough shop-head to snap the mandrel. You can buy flush-head aluminum poppers from J.C.Whitney in boxes of 500 for about $12. (JCW item# 14xx4090A, box of 500, $12.19) The short ones do fine for this type of job. As with all poppers, be sure to wash them good in MEK prior to use. The manufacture of pop rivets always leaves some amount of lubricant on the finished product. That tiny trace of oil will interfere with the adhesion of the sealant (and of your zinc chromate, when using steel poppers on your other panels). Steel poppers may be a wiser choice for attaching the flanged aluminum fitting for the tank's outlet. You may of course use steel button-head poppers for the entire tank if you wish. I like the flush-head aluminum jobbies for the seam-lines because they give me a stiffer joint at less weight. If you prefer to use solid rivets you'll need to provide access for bucking the things. Wag Aero still sells sealed blind-nuts for a reasonable price (Cat# L-676-000 Pkg of 50 for $10.95) Sealed blind nuts are standard for fuel tanks. The threads of the screw are sealed away from the contents of the tank inside a little dome. Slosh the tank, you can still remove the access panel. Tanks tend to violate the rule for panel size vs edge support so you'll probably want to pound an ‘X' bead into the four sides and the bottom. If the top of the tank is curved it will already be stiff enough but the sides & bottom will tend to be pretty wimpy, especially if you're using soft aluminum. (Almost anything will do for making a tank. Don't tell anyone but I've made tanks out of siding aluminum. ) If you don't understand what I'm talking about here, take a look at a steel Jerry can. Some guys like to roll such flutes into the panel but you can do perfectly well by making up a suitable groove or gap in a board, laying the panel across it and making several light passes along the groove with your rubber mallet. Fuel tank is usually an irregular box. Occasionally an irregular cylinder. Cylinders support themselves but boxes don't. If the thing has corners, plan on adding a couple of baffles, not only to control the slosh but to stiffen the structure. Rivet-on flanges for the filler and outlet are available from aircraft suppliers but since they are simple turnings they are easy enough to make if you have a lathe. And even if you don't. There are thousands of hobby-machinists on the Internet, their weapon of choice a little 7x10 lathe that's plenty big enough to whip out a set of fuel tank fittings. To track down such folks just go to the appropriate Newsgroup – rec.crafts.metalworking is but one of dozens of such groups – post a message having ‘Help!' as the subject line, describe the job and tell them where you're located. The squeaking wheel gets the grease - keep shouting until you connect with someone in your area. Like all machinists - which is what these folks are... the size of the machine has nothing to do with it - he'll need an accurately dimensioned drawing to work from and you'll probably need to provide him with the stock. Applying sealants is messy as hell, especially Pro-Seal and the other polysulfides. Masking off the area to be sealed/riveted will help and you might want to consider PK's instead of clecos. Polysulfide sealant is close to the perfect adhesive, it'll stick to ANYTHING... and doesn't like to come off. (For dimpled holes you'll need the longer (ie, 3/8") PK's.) Grubby-up a PK, throw it away. You're out maybe two cents. Give the surface to be sealed a final wipe-down with MEK (or whatever solvent is recommended for you sealant). Allow it to evaporate. Apply the sealant according to the instructions. Most call for a smooth, uniform coating on both surfaces. Not too thick, a few thousandths is all you'll need if your rivet-line is a good fit. And not too wide, about three-quarter of an inch, max. Most of this stuff cures by reaction with water vapor in the air, something present everywhere on our particular planet. Cure time is a function of the width of the sealant-line and the humidity in the air. (That's why the stuff is so popular with boaters – it cures underwater faster than out of it.) The two-part formulation cures faster than the no-mix stuff. You only need about three ounces of sealant for a ten gallon tank, most of which will go on the flanges, your tools and your clothes. (If you've never used Pro-Seal before, buy a pint :-) If you use the 2oz kits, the little tubes can be hard to handle without the matching gun, a $75 item. (Aircraft certified, right? :-) A dime's worth of Bondo will allow you to modify a regular calking gun to accept the 2oz aircraft-certified cartridges. If you want to go that route, I'll tell you how to make an adapter. Aircraft Spruce also lists the stuff in pints [$37] and quarts [$74] but the secret to using bulk-packaged sealants is how to mix & apply the stuff without gluing yourself to the wall. The usual mix ratio is 10:1 and is fairly critical. The use of a ratio'd balance beam, baggies for one component and a Teflon cup for the other is a fairly common procedure. Once you've balanced the beam, pour the One-stuff from the Teflon cup into the Ten-stuff in the plastic baggie then seal up the baggie and mix the stuff by squishing the baggie, like colorizing oleomargarine in days of yore. (That's my yore, not your yore.) Once the color is uniform, snip a corner of the baggie and squeeze the stuff out like decorating a cake, using a scrap of metal as a palette knife to smooth the bead to a uniform thickness across the bond line. Standard practice when using poppers with a sealed structure is to dip the degreased popper in the sealant just before you stick it in the hole and give it a little twist. Don't get too far ahead with the sticking & twisting before coming back and doing the popping. The structure should be perfectly secured with a PK in about every fourth hole giving you three poppers in a row. When you pop, always do the middle one first. Once it's popped some guys butter a smear of sealant into the mandrel hole but it's not necessary if you're going to slosh the tank. After your tank is fabricated leave it alone for about three days, until the sealant is cured. After it has cured you can provide yourself with virtual 100% leak-free assurance by sloshing the tank with a PVA fuel tank sealant. J. C. Whitney will sell you a quart of the stuff for about thirty bucks. You need less than a pint but I haven't found anyone who'll sell me that small a quantity. As with the polysulfides, there are only a few companies that make fuel tank sealants and most use functionally identical formulations. The thirty dollar stuff from J.C.Whitney appears to be the same as the hundred dollar stuff with ‘aircraft-certified' on the label. Maybe it's not but it works the same. Since your tank was already etched, the sloshing sealant is going to form a perfect bond. Plug the outlet, pour in the sloshing sealant (it's a creamy white stuff; the vehicle is MEK) seal up the inlet (I use a hose clamp and piece of inner tube) then commence rolling the tank over and around and up and down... but in a logical fashion. What you want to do is to flow the sloshing sealer over every part of the interior surface. After sloshing the tank, drain the sealant back into its can and seal it up good. Remove whatever is plugging the drain so air can circulate through the tank, prop it so it can drip out then leave the thing to cure. Takes about 24 ours. When it's cured, get your light wand and your bore scope and whatever else you need and inspect the interior surface. It should have a uniform white coating. The sealant is a form of PVA – polyvinylalcohol. Once cured, it is impervious to virtually all solvents, including gasoline, alcohol and water. I've used the J.C.Whitney stuff on steel, aluminum and fiberglas with excellent results (JCW "Alcohol resistant Gas Tank Sealer" item# 12xx8316Y each $28.99). How well it works depends largely on how well you've prepped the surface. Basic rule is to have it perfectly free of grease, including fingerprints. For aluminum, you need to provide some ‘tooth' to the surface, which is accomplished by the etchant (ie, the Prep & Primer stuff). Lots of ‘expert' homebuilders damn such tanks with faint praise. Sure it works... but REAL fuel tanks are ALWAYS welded, yadayadayada... Sure they are, Mr. Expert. (I invite those experts to join me at FlaBob as we refurbish a P-51... and its riveted, sealed and sloshed fuel tanks.) Your fuel system should have a strainer in the tank. Smartest one you can get is to MAKE YOUR OWN using a short length of 3003 aluminum tubing, slit about every quarter inch with a hobby saw. The typical hobby saw leaves a kerf about ..028" wide, much smaller than the mesh of a cheap finger strainer. Cut enough slots to insure the thing will flow enough fuel. The tank should be equipped with a shut-off valve. See the Northern Hydraulics catalog. Go to the same source for your gascolator. It ain't aviation-certified but it works and doesn't cost the earth. Basic fuel tank plumbing is to keep a constant down-ward flow of fairly large diameter tubing from the tank to the gascolator. The idea here is that anything large enough to get through the strainer in the tank will NOT block the fuel line but will simply end up in the gascolator. If you're flying a VW a primer makes for easier starting. Since you hand-prop real engines, put the primer near the gascolator; no need to put any more fuel in the fuselage than absolutely necessary. Great Plains sells a good primer at a fair price. For lo-buck builders, riveted, sealed and sloshed fuel tanks are a practical alternative to other methods of fabrication, their use so common we tend to forget others may not have heard of them. -R.S.Hoover PS - The ‘xx' in the JCW item numbers is different for each catalog but the basic number stays the same. Post a follow-up to this message -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Google Home - Advertise with Us - Business Solutions - Services & Tools - Jobs, Press, & Help ©2003 Google |
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