fishhooked;4870356; said:
I'm going to be building a couple plywood tanks and I'm really stumped on how to seal the tanks..
Iv'e been reading alot about epoxy? I'd like to have a couple of color choices, black, blue, and white atleast.
Could I get some info on what you guys have used to seal your tanks and where you got it??
Also did you seal the interior edges of the tank with silicone, and paint over the silicone?
Sorry for all the questions, but I could really use some specific info.
Thanks!
I have used epoxy paint, epoxy resin and polyester resin to seal plywood tanks.
The epoxy paint I just applied directly the plywood and did not use any additional fiberglass reinforcement. Same with epoxy resin but in some cases I did use additional fiberglass. It really depends on the size of the build, especially depth.
When I used polyester I pretty much always used it along with fiberglass reinforcement. There was a time we built a shallow brine shrimp tank where we only fiberglassed the corners and seams. The rest of the plywood was just coated directly with the resin - no fiberglass. But in that case it was a higher quality resin.
Anythingfish did the same thing with one of his monster builds but again used a pretty high quality polyester.
All in all I found the quickest and easiest to be the epoxy paints like Sweetwater. But in my opinion you need a respirator and a well ventilated area due to all of the solvents. And there are hazardous material charges if you don't live close enough to go pick it up.
In an enclosed area I liked the epoxy resins since they don't have the solvents. They are less paint like than Sweetwater but some of the products apply much easier than others. And no hazardous material charges.
Polyester is appealing because it is cheap but the fiberglass reinforcement adds cost and also means more resin is required. But if you want to build a thick layer of heavily reinforced fiberglass then polyester is hard to beat. But it is my least favorite way to seal a plywood tank. I just prefer working with epoxy over polyester.
BTW, epoxy resins can be tinted a lot of different colors. Same with polyester, I believe. And with polyester you can choose from almost any possible color for the gel coat.
Epoxy paints come in a lot of colors and can be tinted to some degree.
Do not apply sealer over silicone. If you want to paint over the caulking then you need to use a polyurethane based caulk and give it plenty of time to cure. There are other products you can paint over but I have not tried this. Muni sealed over an acrylic, paintable silicone with this project.
