18' x 9' x 3.5' catfish tank build in progress.....
- Thread starter necrocanis
- Start date
water soon! progress MUST happen!Sweet build. Still on page 199 after about a week of reading (slow reading). Just sent a couple of bucks and whether it's used in this project or forwarded to MFR I'm glad I could help. Incredible job necro. I look forward to completion.
THanks spaceman. Very generous of you. I'll be donating plasma on thursday again hopefully, and I clean a customer's tank tomorrow! Should have almost enough now to order the second batch by the end of the week.
I took a few mins to see what some of the properties of the blue max is exactly. I decided to do the ever popular carboard box test. The box should hold about 1.5 gals of water once it is cured in two weeks. This stuff has the consistency of cake icing, or maybe hand lotion, or a mixture thereof. I painted the inside of the box with a thick coat and I will let it fully dry. After thirty mins it already looks kinda dry and is tacky to the touch. It covers very well and actually looks like it soaks into what you paint it on. I also painted about a 1.5" square piece of one of the top acrylic pieces that will not be visible anyways and stuck a piece of ply wood to it that was also painted before hand. Would like to see how well it adheres to acryllic. I also decided to see how well it would work sandwhiched between two pieces of ply for future reference. and on top of those two pieces of plywood I put a screw head down and coated the shaft a little just to see how well it adheres to the metal. So we will see how well this stuff works. I would post up some pics, but was unable to get the camera cord today. My wife however just got a new camera, and I might see if it's cord will work for uploading the pics.
Ullopincrate;3105454; said:
Thanks, and if I can't get the camera cord by this weekend I will break down and borrow my wife's camera for some pic taking.
necro, how's the blue max working out?
Be sure to let it fully dry before adding water as it will break down/dilute if not. If you see any kind of milkyness to the water, drain immediately. At least that's what the guy told me. I'm anxious to see how it works in a real situation. Thinking about building a plywood test tank.
Be sure to let it fully dry before adding water as it will break down/dilute if not. If you see any kind of milkyness to the water, drain immediately. At least that's what the guy told me. I'm anxious to see how it works in a real situation. Thinking about building a plywood test tank.
I'm thinking that it's similar to this stuff called "blue stuff" here... but that stuff leaches things into the water and is not potable... if it looks like the same thing and it's potable then it would look really wicked in a tank 
It dries completely potable as it's used for water cisterns, and also for koi ponds. Main uses are for sealing tar roofs, and leaky basements. Initial results are great so far! This stuff does have a wicked coloration to it. Dries almost the shade of the mfk background. Very dark blue that you can see the grain and detail of the wood/carboard through. This stuff is nearly dry after the 13 hrs it's been applied. Still tacky, but then again you are supposed to wait 2 weeks for it to fully cure. I can fully cure quicker than that, but that's the max time so why not wait it out? Even at a tacky stage I couldn't help but to mess with it a little to see how well it's working out. The two pieces of ply that I glued together with it are already super strong bonded together. Not that I pryed hard enough to pull it apart, but they are definitely not comming apart easily when this stuff is full dried. Grain looks amazing on those pieces with the dark blue. Almost like a really dark turqouis(spelling) color. The carboard box I coated has flexed outward from the shrinking of the product as it dries I would imagine, but although it looks bowed the sides are super stiff now. This stuff definitely bonded very well with the cardboard, and I would be suprised if it leaked at all. Now as for the acryllic with plywood sandwhiched. This has me the most suprised. I tryed prying it as I left a 1 sq" lip of the ply hanging off the side and 1.5sq" or so on the acryllic. Even this tiny piece seem very difficult to pry off. very strong stickiness with the acryllic itself. I even tried to scrap it a little and did not want to come off at all. We'll have to see if it still reacts the same when it's fully cured. Initial results are very favorable, but nothing conclusive for 2 weeks yet.
Here's some crappy pics I took with my cell phone. I'll post up the better ones when I have a chance. This stuff really is strong as all get out. I tried yet again to remove the piece of wood from the acryllic and it won't budge I'm actually affraid I might crack, or break the acryllic. Gives me some good ideas!!! Also the screw you can see sticking up. It has adhered to the wood and blue max very strongly. I can pic up the wood with the screw lol.
