sweetwater or MAS epoxy for my plywood with glass front tank?

[horkn]

Well, I am just about ready to start building my 193g plywood tank with glass front.

I am sort of following GARF's website, but also using all the brainpower and musclework on threads on forums all over for ideas how to do my tank the way I want it.


This will be a small tank in comparison to others builds, like matt's 1000g, but it will fit my budget, and my space in the basement.


62" wide by 24" tall, by 30" deep, making 193g.

I need a 3/8 piece of glass, and I will be eurobracing the top with maybe only one rib as a cross brace front to back in the middle. I will have a back centrally located twin overflow tube style overflow.

I can use the sweetwater epoxy paint for about 70 dollars a gallon, or the MAS epoxy for around 100 dollars for a gallon and a half.

My big question, is how much paint/ epoxy will I really need? And what is the advantage to sweetwater vs MAS, and the other way around?

I see the sweetwater is smellier, and takes longer to cure at around a week, but the mas epoxy is low VOC, and dries quicker.

Also, which hardener have you ply guys used? there is a fast, medium and slow hardener to choose from.

Thanks,

Tom

[jayfromfla]

Tom,

I have not built any tanks. But I have built boats with products from both of these companies.

http://www.raka.com/

Larry S. at Raka is fantastic. Call him and tell him what you want to do and he will hook you up. Small shop - has time to spend with his customers.

http://www.uscomposites.com/epoxy.html

Another good place with much better prices than a retail store.

As for what hardener you need. It depends mainly on the ambient temperature of your workspace and how much time you want to be able to work with the mixed epoxy. The fast hardener will be too fast for you. In my opinion, slower is better if you are not experienced in laying up glass. Mix small batches. Larger batches "go off" quicker.

RAKA makes a good non-blushing hardener which I have used. (350).

GET THE PUMPS! It makes mixing by volume much easier.

If you are looking to tint your epoxy - talk to Larry. He will be honest with you regarding whether his products will suit what you want to do.

Looking at GARF's project, looks like he does not use fiberglass. RAKA and US Composites are great places to get fiberglass as well as Epoxy.

[horkn]

Thanks for the info jay!


I redid the stringers and re engineered the entire interior/ floor of my Ski Nautique using epoxy and fiberglass. I spent like 250 man hours doing that, but I still don't think I am experienced enough to go with any hardener that is labeled as fast.

US composites was one of my accounts at my former employer.


I do want to tint the epoxy a medium blue color, and non blushing makes sense to me as I don't want to have to sand between coats.

Tom

[jayfromfla]

There you go. If you have done that kind of work, you have a good idea of how the stuff works. I have never had the need to use the fast epoxy.

If I was building a tank from plywood, I would paint the edges with unthickened epoxy and then usethickened epoxy (instead of a wood glue) prior to screwing the pieces together. I have looked at several build threads and see people using wood glue and eventually glassing over after they build the box.

The other thing I would do is use a filet of thickened epoxy in the inside joints. If it was a large tank I would impregnate a glass tape into the fillet.

The epoxy will soak into the ends of the plywood, the thickened epoxy will fill voids...it basically turns the join into plastic.

With that said, once it is cured, you are done. The wood will fail before the epoxy will.

Good luck.

Jay

I also haven't seen this posted anywhere. Cleanup of uncured epoxy....or how to get that stuff off my arms, legs, hair, etc. - vinegar. Once it is cured....forgetaboutit. Start pealing, cutting, etc.

[therealfatman]

The epoxy method most commonly used for wood aquaiums is poured epoxy. Large amounts of epoxy is used. It is much more expensive to make a MAS poured epoxy than to buy a comparitively sized all glass mass produced tank, or even a custom made all glass tank. The swwet water epoxy paint method is quite economical and a single gallom with eaily be enough for your size tank. It would take many gallons of poured epoxy such as MAS to finish your tank. There are quite a few people on the FingerLakes forum in New York that make the poured epoxy wood tanks. Any question you might have about that technique could easily be answered there. My preferred methodology is epoxy paint with a piece of FRP placed over the bottom before adding sand and water.

[davisju1]

Go with the mas epoxy with slow hardner and pour the epoxy it works great I just got finished with mine.Tank size 96LX48WX35H
I used this to find out how much epoxy to use for side of the tank
Cubic inches for each side X Thickness you want the epoxy to be X .004329004 = GAL.
Here the numbers for the bottom of the tank
4115.25 (CI) X .1875 (T)=771.6094 X .004329004=3.3403 (GAL)


http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l318/davisju1_2006/600TANK278.jpg
http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l318/davisju1_2006/600TANK281.jpg
http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l318/davisju1_2006/600TANK281.jpg

[therealfatman]

Most Mas epoxy tanks have two coats minimum with cloth so say 7 gallons epoxy, plus hardner, plus cloth. So $ 100 per each of the 7 gallons, plus $30 each for 7 quarts hardner and say $100 for cloth. Some even use a seprarte third thin coat to cover sanded areas and repair bubbles and for adding color as a finish coat. Thast is at least $1000. I believe the last finger lakes tank I read about he spent over $1200 when including the wood cost.

[MattShack]

Tom,

The epoxy, such as MAS and Sweetwater are two different products. MAS is an epoxy RESIN, and Sweetwater is an epoxy PAINT. I have seen plywood tanks built just using the Sweetwater, but I would be concerned about the longevity.

I'm using epoxy resin and fiberglass cloth, then painting over it with Sweetwater epoxy paint. Here's why:

The epoxy and fiberglass is a much stronger and thicker coating between the water and the wood. Sweetwater coating would be thin and you stand a chance of punturing the seal with a rock falling, etc. The fiberglass gives the resin strength and helps to keep it from cracking, keeping it waterproof.

The epoxy resin does not do well with prolonged UV exposure, such as our lighting. That is why I'm using the Sweetwater epoxy paint, it is to protect the epoxy and fiberglass from UV (it is more UV stable) and to give the tank color.

I 100% agree with jayfromfla's post above. Using the epoxy instead of wood glue, thickened epoxy at all joints. filet. That is exactally what I am doing. I plan on working on this stage this weekend and I'm going to try and post as many detailed pics as possible.

I've researched everywhere for best product/price on all of my components. Here are some links that may help.

Just as Jayfromfla said, US Composites is a good product and have the best price I have found for the epoxy resin. I'm using their thin 635 thin resin with 3:1 ratio medium hardner. http://www.uscomposites.com/

This is a good article from another site that will help with estimating how much you need. It depends on which fiberglass cloth you use. (Don't use the chopped strand) http://www.fiberglasssite.com/servlet/the-68/Fiberglass-Information%2C-and-How/Detail

This is the absolute best price I have found on fiberglass cloth by far. They are a fraction of the cost of the other places. http://www.thayercraft.com/index.htm

[horkn]

good stuff guys!


I have lurked a lot on fingerlakes, and I saw this stuff mentioned, but nobody responded the guy that posted this.

http://www.clarkcraft.com/cgi-supplies/shop.pl?type=topic&topic_name_value=epoxy_resin&cart_id=3497a4add6d3ae66816a992608f8add9


This looks to be a much more economical product than MAS, even from defender.

I will need to break out the calculator to determine how much epoxy I need.

I do like the look of the sweetwater tinted over the epoxy, so that way you get the best of both worlds.

I am trying to do this for as little as possible, but maintaining structural soundness. The nice thing about a woody is that you can buy 100 dollars of materials at a time:) My previous employer determined that they could get buy with no aftermarket purchasing agent, so that is the reason why I am trying to keep costs low. Building a woody will keep my sanity in the interim, and will give me a nice upgrade to my 90g that I currently have.


One more question for now...

Should I get the glass tempered or not? I hear from most, that tempered is not necessary, and if you think about it, AGA tanks are only tempered on the bottom.

[MattShack]

My glass is not tempered.

http://www.clarkcraft.com/cgi-suppl...16a992608f8add9 I don't know anything about this epoxy, but according to the information on the website it sounds like pretty good stuff. It is slightly more expensive than US Composites. I beleive clarkcraft is closer to your location, may make a difference in shipping charges.

[horkn]

yeah, the uscomposite stuff is much cheaper than even the clarkcraft stuff.

so did you use the uscomposite 635 with the medium hardener?

It looks like if you use the medium hardener and re apply after it sets, but before final cure time that you don't need to sand in between. I like that idea.


I still have yet to do the math, but I bet I can do a 2 gallon uscomposite epoxy kit, and then a gallon or maybe a half gallon of the sweetwater, that I can cover the whole tank well.

I still have fiberglass resin that I could an probably should use on the outside of the tank. I have that resin leftover from a previous project and I might as well use it now.

[horkn]

Actually, the uscomposite stuff is not really much cheaper at all than the clarkcraft. I might have to call up clark craft and talk to them about what I am planning.

Now the thing I like about the clarkcraft epoxy is that it is non blushing, and I could recoat whenever with no sanding.
I think I will register on fingerlakes and get the plywood guild to check my logic. I will gte the plywood part underway this weekend though, I need to get rolling.

[horkn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15177767#post15177767 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by therealfatman
Most Mas epoxy tanks have two coats minimum with cloth so say 7 gallons epoxy, plus hardner, plus cloth. So $ 100 per each of the 7 gallons, plus $30 each for 7 quarts hardner and say $100 for cloth. Some even use a seprarte third thin coat to cover sanded areas and repair bubbles and for adding color as a finish coat. Thast is at least $1000. I believe the last finger lakes tank I read about he spent over $1200 when including the wood cost.

For a tank the size I am making 7 gallons seems excessive.

[therealfatman]

Once you get to Finger Lakes you will see the extremes they go to. I am not saying a tank needs the thickness of epoxy they are using but they seem to really lay it on thick and in multiple coats. Lots of good photos of large tanks propped at wierd angles as they poured the epoxy on. They also tend to do overflows and wave boxes as part of their tanks. Some even had welded cut in steel angle angle iron frames within the wood framing. Big bucks tanks, but likely more extreme than some would do. They tend to use cabinet grade hardwood plywood (maybe even solid core plywood) and hardwood framing. Didn't seem to hold back on spending money on any of the materials. They definitely did not try to say the tanks wete cheap, just custom to their specific wants and needs. They even show photos of defects like bubbles around wave makers box inlets and such and how they repaired them. Definitely not amateurish work on some of those tanks. I definitely liked them until I heard how much time and money they spent on them. Maybe I just saw the extreme ones and not the common ones.

They seemed very down on epoxy paint tanks.

[jayfromfla]

Horkn,

Please don't think that using a non-blushing hardener eliminates the requirement for sanding between coats.

If you get amine blush, it needs to be removed (water and scotch bright pads, then wipe up before it dries, then lightly sand) prior to re-coating with anything (epoxy, varnish, paint). Don't just sand - that just spreads it around.

When doing multiple coats of epoxy, they need to be bonded together. That can be a chemical bond or a mechanical bond. The chemical bond can be achieved by laying up your next layer prior to the full cure of the earlier layer. The chemical bond available diminishes as the cure process advances.

I would not be afraid of sanding. It is not a big deal. It only gets itchy if you are using glass and you sand into it the glass - which in most cases is not desirable (unless you are fixing a mistake). I would recommend sanding (preparation for a mechanical bond between layers) if you have any doubt as to the cure of the previous layer.

With the epoxy I use, if I am more than 24 hours from when it stops being sticky, I sand.

PS: Use the pumps!! Mix in small batches. Take your time. Have fun! Jay

[MattShack]

Yes. 635 with medium hardner.

Don't worry about the amine blush, it's water soluble. You don't have to sand it off.


[B]I still have yet to do the math, but I bet I can do a 2 gallon uscomposite epoxy kit, and then a gallon or maybe a half gallon of the sweetwater, that I can cover the whole tank well.[B]

I didn't do any of the math, but I think you're on the right track.

[horkn]

I am not worried about itchiness from the fiberglass at all. I had enough of that when I had to sand/ grind the heck out of the inside of my boat I re did a couple years back.

I see most of the builds on fingerlakes are merely for the exact size of tank, and not $$ savings, but that way they make the tank how they want it. Most of these are overbuilt, and I like that idea, but even tanks built exactly as garf recommends seem to last 20+ years. I know garf does not recommend any really large tanks, and many of the tanks on fingerlakes are at least 2 sides viewable.


I will have a double overflow incorporated into the back of my woody, like a centralized calfo, but not end to end. I will build the overflow into the plywood eurobrace, and also to the back of the tank.

And i will definitely spring the few $ for the pumps, all over the correct craft sites I am on they are adamant about getting those, and for good reason.

I see sweetwater only comes in gallon sizes, but that should afford me enough to coat the entire tank, including the outside and bottom as well as the inside and eurobracing.
Thanks for the ideas guys.