Fiberglass Water Tank Repairs

[Roy I. Olsen]

I'm in the process of reattaching the baffles in my starboard water tank. The three tanks in my Pearson 365 are factory installed fiberglass tanks. My plan is to use West epoxy to "glue" the baffles in their original location and to use fabric and resin to hold them down. Is this good enough for potable water? If not....what??
Preciate it!
Roy

[Tropic Cat]

I watched a boat repair guy tear apart a fiberglass water tank which was built into an Endeavor Catamaran, and put it back together again. Heck of a dirty job. He used epoxy on the baffles but then used a special paint to coat the interior of the tank. I recall the conversations he had with factory reps in choosing the correct stuff.

[s/v Jedi]

Roy,

If you use an epoxy mixture with colloidal silica filler and use that to bond the baffles in place and form fillets around it on both sides, it is strong enough so you don't need fabric. Make sure you sand the surfaces to be bonded and the surfaces where the fillets go with 80-grit paper. Vacuum all dust out and wipe with acetone before bonding.

But you will need to paint. Like Rick wrote, there are special paints for it but I can't help you with that. I once searched for a "taste-free" and food-safe paint and came up with the standard Awlgrip. That stuff is poison in the can but completely inert once cured. But it probably is too expensive and too much work for the insides of a water tank! Probably a single part polyurethane is good too but you will have to ask the manufacturers. Some white paints still have lead in it so be careful.

cheers,
Nick.