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Old 05-03-2019, 03:48 AM   #2
fractalphreak
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City: La Conner WA
Vessel Name: Northwest Dream
Vessel Model: Davis Vashon 42 Trawler (Defever design)
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 318
Here's that suction pipe joined with glass and resin. Finding the pipe made out of the same resin made this whole thing possible.

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And here it is glassed into the tank body...

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This isn't a final product, but you get the idea. I ground out that suction hole bigger before I was done.

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I also found ANOTHER company that makes vinyl ester pipe fittings. I bought a 3/4 vinyl ester pipe coupler, cut the last portion with their machined threads off, and laminated those into the tank top to serve as my vent fittings. Since I'm making this tank from scratch, and will be doing major fitting work on the other, I'm cross venting the tanks to each other. The aft tank vent through hull is on the starboard side, this new tank vent is on the port side, so I'll have both tanks each having 2 3/4" vents. I accurately measured the capacity (22 gallons) and marked it, I left a couple portions unpainted, we'll see how long I can tell the level. I'll likely end up retrofitting some sort of an electronic system if it doesn't work. I could detect water level though.

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In the end, it cost me more than a poly tank. Because I didn't count my hours, it was undoubtedly cheaper than having a custom fiberglass tank made. (The Admiral would probably comment that anything keeping me out of trouble is hours well spent.)

I overbought materials that I plan on using for other projects, but with the resin we used, the portion of the materials we used and the pipe/fittings, this tank cost about $400 to make. When I have the aft tank repaired, I'll have a total holding capacity on board of just over 60 gallons.

Oh yeah, we needed to be able to pump it out! From where I placed the fitting on the tank, I was able to run the pump out hose uphill all the way to the deck fitting. Which I needed to install; holesaw to a perfectly good deck. Nothing but shiny new plywood inside!

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I used a router with a slot bit to remove all the wood back about 3/8" from the edge of the hole

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After that I sealed the deck core with thickened resin (vinyl ester with Cabosil and milled glass)

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...then created the same type of slightly raised deck fitting mount the rest of my deck fittings have. I'm very not happy with the final finish. This was all done at the dock in the marina, and I was not going to spend a lot of time sanding. We were leaving the next day for our spring break trip, so that made for a temporary ugly finish. We'll be doing the final shaping of this when we schedule time do some exterior glass work on the deck-house joint this summer.

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