Friday, October 4, 2013

Progress on the Tank Access Ports

Spent the day glassing and grinding. I wanted to elevate the area of the top where the access covers seal to the top so that small amounts of liquids on the top would not flow into the tank when the cover is off . So I added two layers of 1.5ox mat around the port opening.



Here you can see one where I have add the 2 layers of mat around the opening. It elevates the opening by about 1/8" which is enough to keep liquids from flowing in......if the top is nearly level. I will be occupied with other issues at times when it is not level....like the boat sinking.
















The other goal was to have the surface around the opening be as planar as possible to aid in sealing the covers. So I wetted to glass out then worked all the air out and laid a piece of wax paper over the wet glass. After working all the air out where the paper met the wet glass work, I layed a piece of 3/4 ply with Formica on the underside over the glass work and put 15lbs. of weight on it. It worked pretty well.





I used the pieces I cut out of the underside of the tops where the holes are located to make the covers. Unfortunately the glass work was not as thick as I wanted so I added 2 layers of 1.5 oz mat and a layer of 24 oz Biax to each one. The resulting thickness is close to 3/8" which should be plenty considering it will be held down with 10  1/4-20 bolts. The holes are only 8" X 10" in size. I marked the locations on the glass before I add the new layers. so they are permanent now.







Here is the stack of the 8 covers for the Port and starboard tanks. The P2 you see is glassed in, and means 2 hole aft on the port side tank.

I have the  2 holes in the upper center tank top left to cut and finish and to make the 4 covers for the center line tanks. This is going faster than the finishing of the insides of the tanks.

Tomorrow is tank trail fill day. I plan to fill all of them for a couple of days to make sure there are no leaks before I put the tops on....Also get to measure how much they hold.




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