Saturday, March 21, 2009

tank assembled

OK, mixed another slury of the milled glass fibers with the slow cure epoxy and laid a bead along the interfaces. Got a lot of squeeze-out once the thing was taped down (especially along the inside when I peered in with a flashlight through the cap hole). Hopefully it'll be alright.


8 comments :

  1. Finally! :-) I'm exited how it will look like once it's painted and the fuel taps/cap are/is mounted.

    I stay tuned! ;-)

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  2. hey thanks for staying tuned, alexander, it has been a long time in coming, ya?

    I'm actually not planning to paint this one. maybe the next tank I make will be painted, but for now, I'm too much in a hurry to get everything else done...we'll see how it looks later on...

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  3. But your are actually going to use this tank on your bike, or is it just a "prototype"?

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  4. oh yes, I'll be using this tank as long as it doesn't leak! I'm just not sure about taking the extra time to paint it. I wanted it black anyway, and so if the finish is acceptable to me once I've sanded, polished and waxed the surface, then I'll just leave it as is. Painting is a huge pain in the ass for me so I'll avoid it whenever possible :-)

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  5. just checking in for some GRP tips before I get all messy on the tank for my CCM. Thanks for being the guineapig & photographing every step
    BP

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  6. any leaks now after a year of petrol sloshing?
    BP

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  7. It's been over a year and nope, I have not noticed any leaks or soft spots in the layup.

    My guess is that the tank is overbuilt for the job (Still lighter than the original steel one).

    Had I the chance to do it all over, I would probably have tried to do the initial layup with the petcock fittings in place instead of sticking them onto the outside.

    But the layer of chemically resilient epoxy that I mention later in this build seems to be working just fine.

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  8. ...Right, I mentioned it earlier, but it's Caswell two-part epoxy for the liner. Just mixed a bunch of it up, dumped it inside the tank and sloshed it around as well as I could:

    http://www.caswellplating.com/aids/epoxygas.htm

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