Fruits Of My Labor (A-113)

[Commander 147]

Dang Tony

You are moving right along with putting her back together again. What you're doing looks great. Very impressive.

[Tony G]

Thanks, Jerry. I'm sweating bullets trying to get back on track being I wiped out one years work on her. I've been trying to swing like a five day deal of just boat work, but it somehow backfired and now I'm the only one at the store today?!?

One thing I can say is 1/4" baltic birch is plenty strong for what I'm doing. The water tank will have 1/2" fore and aft bulkheads. But after the baffles get tabbed in I'd bet you could do it with 1/4" material no problem.

[ebb]

Keep on it.
If you are making built-in water tanks where you will use epoxy and glass to line the tank...
I would consider using plain fiberglass sheet for the baffles - no wood, even if covered.

You can make up flat sheet by laying out cloth on MYLAR film.
Douse it with epoxy, squeegy it with as many layers of cloth you want
then place another piece of mylar film on top.
Then a piece of flat plywood with some weight on top of it.
Wait til you see what you get!!! Wonderful!

Small tanks with a surge baffle supported on all sides can be fairly thin imco, like maybe 1/8".
That's what I put in mine. Have fun gluing in the top with the baffle(s) in place!
If you plan on coating the inside with a potable-water epoxy, that thin baffle will fatten up and be amazingly stiff.

[Tony G]

Ebb, do you mean 1/8" thick baffles or 1/8" thick walls?

I have planned to use 1/2" for the fore and aft bulkheads because if you're pounding to weather or just up onto the beach I figured most of the stresses introduced by the force of the water sloshing in the tank would be in the forward direction. But I have read some claims by individuals that a couple of layers of fabric on 1/4" ply is all you need.

The NSF paint!!! Something that is more expensive than epoxy!

[ebb]

Hey Tony, I do mean the thin baffle plates. If they are supported - filleted and tabbed to the inside walls of the tank they will be plenty strong. Obviously they get thicker at the walls because of the tabbing and the coved bead of gell fillet makes them even stronger. You do need to have 'relief' holes in the bafflle so that the surge is broken up but free to circulate.
Think I remember leaving the top corners open (just because it was easier to fit and tab - and slip the top of the tank (plywood covered on the inside with frp) which had a shallow groove in it to receive the top of the baffle.
I opened the center of the bottom of the baffle to allow water to drain wherever it's going - and to aid cleaning of the tank. I put access plates on either side of the baffle through the top.
Can't remember what the recommended distance between baffles or what volume of liquid needed to be controlled. Don't follow rules anyway.

It's possible that water tanks will get fouled and need cleaning, washing, or at least stirred up with a pressure hose and pumped out. Sludge lurks in corners.

FRESH WATER rots wood.
If you put plywood in there, you could be adding flavor to your water.
Remember epoxy is not entirely waterproof.

The potable water coating I used came from epoxyproducts,com. It is actually called 'tank coating' and rates in the US as OK for 10.000 gallon tanks. But it's pretty obvious other private parties use it for smaller tanks. I think that is intimated somewhere in the site literature that the limitation is a quirk of the FDA..
It is a thick white 2-part 100% solids glossy paint that is difficult to apply because it goes on so thick. Costs too much like all coatings and paints., I guess. But look it up. The company is in NH so there is S&H to pay for also.
But I thought of it as a sealer against laminating epoxy. You can't trust anybody's epoxy to be free of leaching chems.
Look at my nemesis Pest Systems (whose epoxy blushes, uses petro solvents and carcinogenic extenders like nonylphenol which might not catalyze fully when hard - and have formaldehyde in their hardeners. Why do you think I've gone nuts already?
What's NSF? Not So Fantastic?
LOL (lousy oil lamp)

[Tony G]

I may be mistaken, but, in this case the S is for 'Stand by! Your wallet is about to be accosted.' Not too sure about the N. But the F is for the first thing out of my mouth when I saw the price. Lousy oil lamp

The forward tank measures roughly 22 inches square and the bottom follows the hull form in that area. I'm going to run the baffels in a simple 'X' shape fore and aft and athwartship. A 10" diameter inspection port and cleanout hatch will get centered on the 'X'. That way I can access each section to clean or gawd knows whatever.

True to form, I way, way over engineered the water tank at first. Fortunately common sense kicked in and now we are looking at making a tank that provides what we need not some silly contraption with a top-heavy cost to benefit ratio. Ugh!

Dang! Just about forgot. The inspection port I stole from your chain locker design. so thanks!

[Tony G]

Got a couple of shots of some 'bote stuff' goings on.

For some reason I had all sorts of crazy ideas of how I wanted to handle the drains for the former chain locker and the new chain locker. In the end I just got some Spa-Flex tubing and glued it in place. Simple enough. I don't know what all of the confusion was about.

The forward locker drain just follows the centerline of the hull. Just aft of the water tank's forward bulkhead it veers to port and progresses relatively straight to the intersection of the hull and the top of the fiberglass 'cap' over the lead ballast.

The 'new' anchor locker drain starts just forward of the water tank's forward bulkhead in the anchor locker (duh-me...) and veers starboard reflecting the port run.

At first I was going to fillet the sides with thickened epoxy but then why waste the product. So I made some fillets from 5/8" square styrofoam. I simply hot-glued the strips snug to the PVC then sanded a taper with a sanding block loaded with 40 grit paper.

These photos are dark but you can see the runs of pipe. The anchor locker drain is under construction here and the port side forward locker drain is sheathed in 7 oz. and stitched matt. You can see the working end of the sanding block on the far left.

[Tony G]

Late in the game I decided to divide the chain locker. First off there just isn't the need for that much room pulling single duty on a boat this small (in my totally inexperience opinion). The other side could still be used for storing additional rode and/or what not. But more importantly the divider provides nice support for the water tank's forward bulkhead. And the added surprise-the forward compartment drain makes a nice fillet! I have to add a small 'ramp' at the forward end to help the anchor rode spill but that will have to wait untill things are glued in place.

The top edeges of the 1/4" ply gets reinforced with mahogany strips with a triangular profile. The rational being the flat top provides a nice, wide surface for supporting the decking or hatch lids and the bottom has no edges to catch things on or split knuckles with.

Here's a shot of the anchor locker drain.

[Tony G]

The water tank bulkheads drop into 'grooves' formed by triangular cleats. Of course all of the edges get sealed with two coats before assembly. And there will be plenty of thickened epoxy fillets for the bonding here for the strength. I've been reading and re-reading everything I can find on building water tanks. Turns out it's the same as building plywood aquariums I can do that! I have done that!

I'm really looking forward to getting the tank done.

The tank will only occupy the bottom( duh-me..)two thirds of this area. The top area will have the inspection port, the filler tube, a vent, the pick up tube and the fan and ducting for the composter.

[ebb]

ESTA DE PELO, Senor!

[Tony G]

On the port side in the berth/head/storage area I plan to have a couple of shelves to put totes on for storing items. That idea came from Craig Amos-thank you Craig. Being that happens on the same level as the berth decking I thought I'd add some access panels so we could have some 'deep' storage under the totes.

It's tough to see in these photos because I didn't push the 'flower' button on the camera, but, there is a 5/8" wide by 1/4" deep recess for lids to rest on-lids yet to be made.

Because the hanging locker is just forward of the main bulkhead there is only three 'bins' on the port side. The starboard side has four plus the wee-little triangular shaped spot at the very forward end. It too will be used. I have been tossing around the idea of adding horizontal dividers to the aft two bins on the starboard side just to keep things a little more organized. As a matter of fact I just decided I have to.

[Tony G]

Here are a couple of photos taken earlier that show the 'wee-little' trianguar bins in the berth area. They look deceptively cavernous in the photos but are about 550 cubic inches in volume( 2.3 gal). The starboard side will be covered and have access through a hinged lid being that side of the cabin is a berth. The port side will be open to the berth area and will essentially be a open topped dump bin.

[Commander 147]

Tony

It must be nice to work on a totally stripped out hull to build everything in new like you are doing. I think my biggest challenges are dealing with what is existing that I don't need to remove but need to work around.

And as expected from you it looks like you are doing very nice work there.

[ebb]

Detect little drops here and there.
Are they drops of sweat or blood or both?

[Tony G]

[QUOTE=Commander 147;21861 my biggest challenges are dealing with what is existing that I don't need to remove but need to work around.

[/QUOTE]

You got that right, brother! I didn't utilize patterns as much as I should have the first time around. Second and third generation patterns, while eating up a lot of production time, help make the final piece fit into place much nicer. And having the room to work....even if I'm going to repeat some feature already there, I'm going to rip it out first just to have the room to get it right!