Well I missed a day of reporting but the work is still visible. I mixed some fine sawdust with some epoxy to make a paste and applied it to all of the inside corners. This does 2 things. It fills the gap in the joint if there is one and it ends up putting a radius in the corner. Cracks in general like to start where 2 sharp edges meet. When you build out the corner you make the sharp line go away. Kind of like the difference between putting a sharp fold in a piece of paper right before you tear it and trying to tear it in a straight line without a fold.
This part is just informational about me. Anything I say on this forum is me trying to pass on things that I have learned without being preachy. That is why I explain what I do in each step. I am not trying to say "look what I can do!" I am not a master tank builder but I did build a fiberglass boat so kind of like a tank inside out. There are probably better ways to do a lot of things that i do. At least you'll know one way that it was done. Knowledge is power.
So, back to our story. Today's pic is of the tank with the filler in the corners and a 6" wide piece of fiberglass cloth over them. The cloth goes clear when it is thouroughly covered in resin. It takes some practice to handle the cloth. It tend to come apart at the edges. When you have gloves on with a little resin on them and handle the cloth it can quickly end up as a fiberglass ball. It keeps coming apart and getting worse and worse. Lots of disposable gloves are your friend.
The thing that is working for and against me is that the epoxy I bought has kind of a medium setting time. Not too fast or too slow. That combined with the fact that my shop is at about 68 degrees means that the epoxy is kind of slow to set up. Not great if you are in a hurry. Really nice if you are just doing one lay up per day and are spending a lot of time smoothing things out. I'll call it nice for me. If you ever work with this stuff and you feel it start to set up it is like in a movie where the evil villain freezes everyone and you can see the ice coming at you. You know you have about 10 seconds to make it better and then it is too late.
Tonight I plan to fiberglass the bottom. I will cut the cloth ahead and dry fit it. You can slide it around some after it is wet. I bought the cloth for the bottom and sides off ebay. It is supposedly a 6 oz cloth, which is very common, but this stuff is a lot thicker. That actually works in my favor for the bottom. Not sure about the sides. It will suck up more resin but provide more protection for leaks. Actually after I sealed the corners of the tank if I had waterproofed the bare wood, it could have been used as a tank at that point. So the resin adds waterproofing and the cloth adds thickness and strength. I will also be painting the tank with an epoxy paint. Part waterproofing, part aesthetics.
