First plwood tank build started..... with pics

[Fishermoe14]

looks great.. keep up the good work

 

[CJH]

So it looks like 1 gallon will coat around 36 square feet 5 times with a sponge brush. which is WAY more than i had thought i could do with one gallon. Im not sure how to measure how many mils each coat is, does anybody else know?

So you're saying the interior of your tank is 36 sq. ft. and you used a single gallon to put on five coats?

If so, 36 x 5 means 180 sq. ft. per gallon.

Seeing that there are 231 cubic inches in a US gallon, if we divide 231 by 144 that means a square foot of a gallon of liquid would be 1.604" thick.

Divide 1.604" by 180 and you get 0.0089". We'll round that up to 0.009.

There are 1000 mils per inch so you have about 9 mils on your plywood tank.

But please note that this assumes your surface is perfectly smooth and that your product is 100% solids, and I'm fairly certain neither of those assumptions are correct.

As percent solids goes down and surface texture increases your mil thickness decreases.

You can use the percent solids on the can and use that to determine your "cured" mil thickness. Let's say the percent solids is 33%. Multiply 9 x 0.33 and your final mil thickness will be 2.97.

When you compare this to the recommended mil thickness you should check to see if it's wet mil thickness or "cured" or "dry" mil thickness the manufacturer is referring to.

I'm fairly certain when a manufacturer recommends a mil thickness for application they mean wet mil thickness. If anyone knows differently please chime in.

And also please feel free to double check my math. I did this quickly with a kid screaming, a dog playing and a wife nagging...

 

[joey02]

the percent in solids is 58%. so by using your calculations, each gallon of rubber will give me around 26mils of total thickness per gallon. but that would be a little higher as i am only coating the top frame twice as it will not be submerged.

the top frame support it 8 square feet, since i am only coating it twice, i will get an extra 64 square feet that i dont have to coat, so that brings my thickness up a bit.

So my over all total thickness should be close to 60 mils once i use both gallons. I only need to acheive a thickness of 40mils.

 

[CJH]

the percent in solids is 58%. so by using your calculations, each gallon of rubber will give me around 26mils of total thickness per gallon. but that would be a little higher as i am only coating the top frame twice as it will not be submerged.

the top frame support it 8 square feet, since i am only coating it twice, i will get an extra 64 square feet that i dont have to coat, so that brings my thickness up a bit.

So my over all total thickness should be close to 60 mils once i use both gallons. I only need to acheive a thickness of 40mils.

I just re-read my post. It was confusing and I apologize, although it seems you were able to read between the lines.

For others following this thread, I should have divided the 1.604" by 36 square feet, not 180 square feet. So "wet mil" thickness would have been 44 mils total thickness after all five coats.

58% of 44 is 25.5, so yes, you should be getting about 26 mils per gallon once the evaporation and curing process is complete and only solids are left.

You lose a little bit in the first coat on the textured plywood but you gain it back in other areas like you said.

 

[AfroCichlidKeeper]

Great looking tank I may have to try and build me a plywood tank one of these days.

 

[oregonian]

love the progress joey, looking really good and coming together pretty quickly.

so onto a little technicality. there is a difference between metric measurement and standard. with all the math being tossed around the fact that an inch IS NOT 1000 millimeters got overlooked. if so you would have about 2.25 INCHES of zavlar coating, which would be great if you want to make sure a crazed fish hater attacked your tank with an ax 1"=25.4mm. i'm lazy and don't want to do the calculations but if you really care there ya go.

anyways keep up the good and THANK YOU so much for bringing this product to the eyes of MFK and testing it. i think it will soon become as popular and revered as scrubbies for DIY

 

[joey02]

Great looking tank I may have to try and build me a plywood tank one of these days.

thank you. give one a try, the hardest part so far is cutting the wood up. as long as you get straight cuts, then the rest is easy...........so far

love the progress joey, looking really good and coming together pretty quickly.

so onto a little technicality. there is a difference between metric measurement and standard. with all the math being tossed around the fact that an inch IS NOT 1000 millimeters got overlooked. if so you would have about 2.25 INCHES of zavlar coating, which would be great if you want to make sure a crazed fish hater attacked your tank with an ax 1"=25.4mm. i'm lazy and don't want to do the calculations but if you really care there ya go.

anyways keep up the good and THANK YOU so much for bringing this product to the eyes of MFK and testing it. i think it will soon become as popular and revered as scrubbies for DIY

Thank you for the words of encouragement. My hopes are very high for this project.

The Measurement of Mil compared to millimeter is not the same thing. Apparently A mil is a measurement much smaller than a millimeter. 1millimeter = 39.37 mils.
I never heard of a mil until i needed a thickness of around 40mils for this tank. I thought it also meant 40 millimeters, which would be 1.57 inches.

the best definition for Mil that i could find is "A Measurement used to determine thickness of a coating. 1 mil = .001 inch (1/1000). "

 

[joey02]

I just re-read my post. It was confusing and I apologize, although it seems you were able to read between the lines.

For others following this thread, I should have divided the 1.604" by 36 square feet, not 180 square feet. So "wet mil" thickness would have been 44 mils total thickness after all five coats.

58% of 44 is 25.5, so yes, you should be getting about 26 mils per gallon once the evaporation and curing process is complete and only solids are left.

You lose a little bit in the first coat on the textured plywood but you gain it back in other areas like you said.

Im glad i read that right. Thank you for the formula.

 

[joey02]

To get an idea of what my ray will look like in the tank, i placed a saucer in the tank as the same size as the ray(8inches)
Looks like she'll have lots of room for a while until i build a much larger tank anyway. This tank will house two rays when done.

 

[CJH]

so onto a little technicality. there is a difference between metric measurement and standard. with all the math being tossed around the fact that an inch IS NOT 1000 millimeters got overlooked.

If I wrote millimeters instead of mils in one of my posts I apologize for that.

If I didn't, then I think you're just confusing millimeters with mils.

A mil is 0.001".