Monday, December 13, 2010

Finishing the Black Tank

I don’t know how many hours the tank has taken, not a lot.  But it’s been one of those jobs that takes small parts of many days:  a layup that takes just a few minutes, an overnight cure, and another layup and cure.

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PC030634

I inset the drain fitting and laid up several plies of cloth over it.  Hate it when I do these things:  put the tank in place and considered where to put the drain, took everything into consideration except the fact that Airstream made these trailers with frames, and of course, dead centered the frame rail with the drain.  Easy fix, I’ve admitted it, and no longer have to explain the patch you’ll see in some of the upcoming pictures.

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Fittings got installed in the top along with a couple of thin wooden stiffeners glassed in.

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Next, 1x2’s were bonded and glassed in to form a mounting flange for the tank top.

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And this is all that was left of the 10 yards of cloth I had ordered, positive I’d have plenty.  The roll on the right in the picture is the additional 5 yards I had to get.

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I used a marine sealant to mount the cleanout fitting.  The nozzle will sit under the bed and connect to the fitting I installed on the outside in an earlier post.

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The tank top was bonded to the bottom with thickened epoxy and attached with some temporary screws.

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Finally, today I removed those screws, trued and rounded the outside edge slightly and finished the job with a two ply layup just over the seam.  Peel ply comes off tomorrow after cure and the tank is done.

-steve 

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