Fruits Of My Labor (A-113)

[Commander227]

Tony,
Man, you are smokin right along!!!
Really looking good. I love all the separate compartments, It's like that thing Dr. Who has thats bigger on the inside than the outside.
You're going to able to be so organized.
Mike
C227

[Tony G]

Sorry. No pictures of the latest work. All I got done was to sheath the inside of the water tank and underside of the tank top. Then I started rolling on layers of straight epoxy to coat all of the surfaces. Even though I was trying to do my best I still ended up with a couple of 'sags' in the final coat.

I hope to make a fiberglass sheet tomorrow morning using the technique Ebb described above. I allready have the patterns for the baffles and that should allow me to get the pieces cut out and installed this weekend. Then I can let everything 'stew' for a couple of weeks before painting and then finally sealing the top on.

We picked up some more plywood this weekend and I am excited to get started decking the forward berth area. Then I will have a surface to work off of in order to sheath the anchor locker(s) so we can check those off the list.

[Tony G]

As if waking up to temperatures rapidly approaching the Fourties isn't depressing enough, these are the two token photos I have of what's going on. I thought it was kind of humorous when I snapped them, but in retrospect, I'm now finding it kind of disturbing. Why is progress so slow at times?

Anyways, burried under the motor and the weight and the extra pipe clamp pipes and the sheet of plywood is two layers or 7 oz. glass, two layers of stitched matting a layer of 18 oz. woven roving sandwiched in between two poly sheathed layers of formica. And a gallon of epoxy...

The other is a pile of stitched matting and woven roving waiting to be installed.

Still hoping for a five day push before it freezes.

[Commander 147]

Dang Tony

Sounds like we need to blend your temps with mine so we can both be better off. I am really getting over 95+ degrees every single day with humidity levels between 50 and 90%. But we will will not get a break from these temps until Oct. sometime. And Novemeber is when it really starts getting nice.

[Tony G]

The DIY fiberglass panels are cut to size and shape. They ended up being just a hair over 3/16" thick and surprisingly uniform considering the crude nature of the platens used and the clamping method. I would have prefered to vacuum bag the sheet of stock, and if my 5' x 5' x 3/4" piece of laminated glass hadn't mysteriously disappeared I would have. But that's another story for some other time...

Here are a couple of photos showing what the pieces look like in place. If somebody sees me doing something wrong or otherwise stupid don't hesitate to let me know!

All four chambers communicate on the bottom via openings. And the semi-circle cut-out(s) on the top, where the panels meet, will allow for 'breathing' between the chambers as the water level in the tank varies with boat motion. I had been vasilating as to wether holes were needed mid-panel but after looking through a reference manual we use at work I am confident it will work as planned.

You can see there is easy access to all four corners of the tank and the deepest 'sump' area is not more than arm's length away.

I hope to get the panels glued in this weekend and fashion a nice, fat fillet on the top edge to tie the top, walls and baffles together as one when we lay the final beads.

[ebb]

Tony,
Great solution to a baffling problem!
Nice work, nice frp sheet work!
Easy, but expensive, huh?

[Tony G]

Thanks, Ebb. When I looked at McMaster-Carr I thought the sheets seemed kind of expensive once shipping was factored in. But I had all the supplies on hand (minus my sheet of glass )so why not just make it myself? Capt. Kurt said once, a long, long time ago, just use cheapo polyester to make sheets out of. But being this was for the water tank I figured I'd keep it all epoxy as everything I've read had refered to epoxy. My bad on the resin amount though. It was only one half of a gallon....

I glued in the baffles last night with some big fillets so I'm curious to see how stiff everything became once the epoxy cured. Next up is some kind of 'fillet forming jig' to thicken up the top edges where they'll meet the tank top proper. This ought to be amusing!