Trojan Boat Forum

rickalan35 wrote:Welding plastic............ yet another thing I know nothing about! Except for the sure fact that if I tried to do it, the end result would probably be one of my limbs somehow welded to the tank, like tar baby.

Great plan and very impressive workmanship, Paul.

ps Is that a drag bike on the wall behind you?

Hi Rick,

This kind of welding isn't that difficult but it does take a little practice. Its much more pleasant to do than welding steel since there's no smoke, no spatter and no burned clothes to deal with.

As for the drag bike, its a Raceworks chassis powered by a Kawasaki Z1R engine with big bore kit that is just shy of 1500cc. It was my job to keep this thing running consistently strong while a friend of mine piloted it down the track in the high 8 sec range.

larryeddington wrote:It is called hot air welding, been used for years to assemble certain plastic piping and is great for repairing cracked fairings from motorcycles that have not stayed upright. I have one but not the quality of the one the author has I do not think. Was wondering what brand he was using myself.

Paul sure does an excellent job!

Hi Larry,

The weld tool is a Leister Triac.

Hey Paul, how about sharing links if available to where you got all the products including the welding hardware and supplies.

Big D wrote:Hey Paul, how about sharing links if available to where you got all the products including the welding hardware and supplies.

The plastic came from a local industrial supply company. Cutting it was done with a simple table saw, jig saw and hole saw in a cordless drill. trimming/shaping the external welded edges was done using a laminate trimmer with a radius router bit. As for the welding equipment, I purchase my supplies (including rod) from a Liester distributor in Burlington called Stanmech Technologies. www.stanmech.com

Well, it looks like this project is now on hold until the fall. I have the fresh water tank assembled and the black water tank ready to weld but at this point the job seems to have become much bigger than originally planned. While I was at the boat last week, preparing it for the tank swap, I realized that this job was only going to lead to several other small jobs. In order to replace the tanks, the exhaust tubes and manifolds must be removed to gain access. While the manifolds are out, this would be the perfect time to move the fresh water pump, accumulator, shower sump, A/C pump and all of the hoses to locations that are easier to gain access to when service is required. Anyone that owns an F-26 with a fiberglass cockpit knows what I'm talking about. So the plan is now to move all of the above to the aft bulkhead under the rear access panel. Also, with everything out of the way, it'll be a good time to apply a fresh coat of Bilgekote. One job leads to another. Since I missed out on last season completely and all of these jobs would probably keep me on the hard until mid July, I decided that this is just not acceptable.

So as for this season, I have the exhaust manifold removed from the right bank to gain access to the black water tank's fowl smelling pump out hose so that I can replace it. When I re-assemble the manifold, I will be replacing the exhaust tubes with Blue Trident exhaust components. I'm adding a few elbows to change the shape of the 2 into 1 system to gain better access to my house bank and my shaft seal. See, again one job leads to another.

A lack of fore sight. When this boat was going thru its stringers up restoration back in 2000, I replaced all of the plumbing to the pumps but left them located in their original positions. I never thought that down the road I might not be flexible enough to access these positions for servicing. This may be something to think about for those who plan on hanging on the their boats long term.

Uh yeah, when you are in there, you may wanna clean your engine!!!!!! HA HA HA HA HA

lawyerdave71 wrote:Uh yeah, when you are in there, you may wanna clean your engine!!!!!! HA HA HA HA HA

I'm impressed!
Your engine room and engine look amazing! If you don't mind me asking what brand of hot air welded is that? I want one to weld starboard together and I figue if yours welds good enough to create a holding tank it would work fo me. Found a few that appeared decent in the $500 range but reviews were limited.
Amazing job on the tank and fittings!

yorklyn wrote:I'm impressed!
Your engine room and engine look amazing! If you don't mind me asking what brand of hot air welded is that? I want one to weld starboard together and I figue if yours welds good enough to create a holding tank it would work fo me. Found a few that appeared decent in the $500 range but reviews were limited.
Amazing job on the tank and fittings!

Hi Todd,

The welding tool is a Triac and its made by a company called Liester. This thing is great for welding Starboard. I've welded steps, storage boxes and other things together using 1/2" Starboard and it always worked out well.

Thanks Paul!