Jump to content

Plywood tanks....


Flycaster

Recommended Posts

Hey I made a 4x2x2 plywood tank about 8 years ago.

I painted the wood with a rubber waterproofing membrane. It lasted about 6 years before the bristlenose finally chewed through the rubber and caused the ply to rot.

If I did it again I would just fibreglass it. Very easy, YouTube will walk you step by step on how to.

Don't get talked into getting marine ply, any structural grade ply will be fine. Have heard guys using mdf wood and fibreglassing over without problems.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wood tanks only become economical at larger sizes since glass is pretty cheap. My largest wood tank is 3m x 3m x 3m made from 75mm thick sleepers with a 2.4m x 1.2m acrylic view panel. To waterproof I used a pond liner as this was the cheapest and handles the flex of wood best. You can get custom made pond liners but I didn't bother.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Use silicon to make a gasket and screw the panel down to make a water tight seal. When applying the silicon, leave the screws slightly loose so there is room to tighten down later when the silicon is dry.

You can drill both glass and acrylic panels or if using toughened glass then use a frame. Large glass doors (toughened) from building demolition places are a great source if cheap panels.

The weight of water on deeper tanks work to your advantage and it is surprisingly easy to make a water tight seal. The advantage of a wooden tank is that you can screw into it but you can use nuts and bolts on a thin wall tank.

I've put polycarbonate panels into circular poly rainwater tanks in similar fashion. You can get a 5000L tank for around $500 this way.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...