final glassing of Starboard tnk edges

This post is out of order, should be ahead of the last post. However I forgot to do it first.

I finished glassing all the remaining outside corners of the tank. Here is the aft top corner.

And the inside top corner

And the front top comer and front end of top to hull joint...

More of the top to hull joint.

And finally the front side corner. I have taken pictures of every corner I glassed to keep a record of the original work and how the glassing looked. Just in case there are any questions in the future about the construction.

Makes for kind of kind of a boring post...

Trying to finish starboard tank

It seems that the two hardest parts of a project are the starting and completing. I only had two items left on the starboard tank 1. fix the unevenness around the inspection ports  and 2 install the deck fills. It has been 2 days!!! and I still am not done.

The idea was that I would mix up some resin with filler apply a layer around the edge of the opening where the inspection panel seal to the wall then clamp this panel on to make the surface very smooth and even. The panel is faced with high gloss Formica which the cured resin will not stick to. 
Well it worked better in theory than practice, the issue is getting enough filled resin on to fill all the voids, which were larger than I had expected. I also discovered that you have to add a lot more catalyst to resin which will have filler added to it. It is best to add the catalyst before the filler to make sure you get it well mixed.

 Onward! To the deck fills. It took some time to determine where to place the deck fills so they would interfere the  least with the storage under the side decks and on top of the tanks. Here is the under side of one of the deck fills. The little chain attaches the screw out cover to the fitting so it will not walk away while you are filling the tank as they are want to due....

Here are the fittings I bought for the tank end of the fill hose. They are though hull fittings which may be a little overkill for this application, but I did not want any fuel leaks...
I used some of my glass filled resin to bed the fitting inside the tank. Once that has set I will loosen the nut and fill the hole around the fitting with resin just in case it try's to leak. That way the plywood core is sealed.

Here is the after tank fill. Tomorrow I hope to get the access port covers in and fill the tanks with water to test them. I would like to get on to the port side tank.

Ripped the sole out!!!

I decided to make life easier for myself on replacing the port side fuel tank.

We ripped the entire cabin sole on the port side of the main salon out and removed the 3 center beams. As you can see this greatly enhances access to the port fuel tank.
I did not do this on the Starboard side because I did not think it would take that long to build the tank......Boy was I wrong about that!!!

Interesting note regarding the "post" on the cabin side. You would think that they would land on a beam for support. Not in this boat, they were just sitting on top of the floor.

Anyway I am ready to start on the port tank next week.

Progress on Starboard Fuel Tank

Being sick with a bad chest cold really slows things down.  Finally got back to work yesterday after two weeks fighting it. I was able to work on the design for the fuel managment system and fresh water system. I will leave those for another post.


I was able to glass the bottom edge of the tank side in and put 2 coat of vinylester resin over the glass work on the inside of the side wall. I had to sand it today AGAIN and will have to put one more coat on tomorrow. I also have to glass in the outside of the top to hull joint and the other 3 outside edges of the side wall. Last job of the day was to get all those edges ground and prepped for glassing tomorrow or the next day. Have help coming tomorrow so I think we will concentrate on removing the salon floor on the port side which will make the removing and replacing the port side tank a lot easier.

Here are the fuel accesses for the aft tank. There are 3 fittings with valves and 1 (behind) for the vent which needs no valve. The other 3 do need valves due to the fact that the piping will run to filters and fittings that are below the level of the tank and could cause a siphon leak. The fitting at the rear is covered with black tape to keep dust out.

View of the lift tubes extending into the tank. The one on the right is the draw for the fuel polishing system. It will draw fuel and dirt from the lowest point in the tank. I have set it right to the bottom so that any water or dirt will be picked up right away.
The one in the middle is the draw for the engine and generator. It extends down to about an 1-1/2" off the bottom, low enough to nearly completely drain the tank but not low enough to pick up water. That's the idea anyway.....
The last one is the fuel return from the engines and it is bent to direct the returning fuel away from the fuel draw. The returning fuel is hot and if you recirculate that hot fuel it will only get hotter to the point of creating a problem. This way the returning fule is mixed into the existing fuel.

I had made and attached the handles to the inspection port covers before I got sick. The covers are mounted from the inside of the tank so the handles are needed.

Access Port Covers Starboard Tank

Finished making the cover plates for the access ports in the side wall of the Starboard tank. There are 32 bolts holding each cover plate on. These access ports will enable us to be able to inspect and clean the insides of the fuel tank. I would not be building new tanks if the builder had put access ports in the steel tanks...

Here is the last one in place. It is a pretty slow and tedious procedure to get to this point. After marking and drilling all the pilot holes in the plate I cut and glued the Buna-N rubber gasket material on the plate at the edges. The end of each piece was super glued to the side of the piece it met at the corner. Now line the plate up over the hole in the tank side and drill 2 holes though the side, one at each of opposite corners of the plate. These will be used to hold the plate in place while I drill all the other holes. Next the 2 holes at the corners are threaded and the bolts screwed in with lock-tite. After re-boring the 2 holes in the tank side with a clearance size drill I install the plate and hold it in place with nuts and washers. Now drill all the rest of the holes around the edges of the plate. After removing the plate all the remaining holes are threaded and the rest of the bolts installed. Next I re-bore the remaining holes in the side of the tank with the clearance size bit. The last step is to install the plate again with nuts and washers on each bolt and then cut the bolts off so that only about 1/4" of bolt is exposed from the nut. I like to do this then put acorn nuts on the exposed threads so they can not get all gummed up or mashed in the years before I need to remove the access cover.

Here are the other 3 plates for the starboard side tank.
The only thing left to do is figure out some kind of handle to put on the plates so you can hold them while putting them in place. They are put on from the inside with the nuts on the outside of the tank.

This is one of the four aluminum bars which will become the fuel manifolds for controlling the flow of fuel from the tanks to the engine, generator and fuel polishing system. It is amazing how fast it get complicated. I have designed most of the system...another post for that.

Starboard Tank Progress

Made good progress on the starboard fuel tank Friday.

 Started out by cutting the lower laminate and plywood core out where the tank fittings will go.

This is a pic of the plywood side of the laminate that I removed for one of the spots. The first "ply" of the plywood was bonded to the glass work better than to the inner ply, meaning that I achieved a very good bond between the plywood and the glass skin. That is what you want.

Here is one of the completed spots. You can see the multiple layers of the plywood through the 3 layers of biax tape and mat I added the seal the core. This achieves two things(1) makes the wall thickness less so the bulkhead fittings will fit and (2) seals the core so even if the fitting leaks at the mounting hole the diesel can not get into the core.





That done is it was time to put the top back in place on top of the end walls of the tank down in the engine room. Not so easy by yourself, I had Chad and his friend help me take it out. But he was not home and I did not want to wait all day...so I muscled it in by my self...back is still not the same.

But here it is along with the center dividing wall
all glassed in. Next I will have to glass the top on where it meets the hull, dividing wall and both ends. This will have to be done both inside and outside the tank . Then I need to glass in the baffle in each compartment and lastly glass the side on. Next will come 2 coats of Vinyl-ester resin to coat all the polyester resin work. The vinyl-ester resin is impervious to more chemicals than the poly is. My main concern is when we start using biodiesel.
I have pictures of each of the joints and the taping for future reference. 

Laying up Fuel Tank Side

Making good progress on the tank side. I was able to complete the mold set-up and cut all the material yesterday and then lay it up this afternoon. Lost this morning at the doc's.

It turns out that the best way to cover the mold with wax paper is to dismantle it and wrap each part individually and then cover the plywood with wax paper and screw the pieces back down. That way you can get nice tight corners. I tried the other way of just covering each channel but the the inside corners are very hard and the wax paper is not very sturdy....

That way you can get nice tight corners. I tried the other way of just covering each channel but the the inside corners are very hard and the wax paper is not very sturdy....

I laid the part up this afternoon and the wax paper worked out very well.
The only problems were do to the cutting of the material and the hardener content in the resin.
In my effort to get good glass coverage I cut the pieces just a little too big so there was "rollup" at the sides and some buildup at the joints. Nothing that can't be corrected with a grinder.

Most of the layups I do are only 2 or 3 layers of combomat or biax tape. So it goes pretty quickly and there is just a little heat buildup. But this was much thicker part with 4 layers of 24 oz Combomat and 1 layer of 4 mm core mat using about 3 gallons of resin and it generated a fair amount of heat which caused the last layer to set too fast and melted the bottom layer of wax paper onto the glass. But over all I am pleased

The inside came out very flat with just a few wrinkles to fill. I can fill and grind the outside to smooth it out. The thickness came out fine at about 7/16". Sure saved a lot of money in resin and cloth doing it this way. The numbers you see were marked on the pieces to keep track of where they went. There were 57 pieces total in the 5 layers.  Onward!!!!