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Hi Vance. Fiberglass tanks should be fine and a saddle design is much more
stable. The downside is they can be cracked by impact. I used sheets of roofing
foam to make the molds, and glassed over them. Not really all that cheap ( even
though the foam was free) but the compound curves of my fairings made FRP
the only real solution. For simple tanks, You could probably whip those up in a
week or less with FRP, and just strap them to the sub. No corrosion/maintenance
issues with them, and if you make them thick enough, they'd be really strong. My
fairings at 3/8 inch are very strong. I was moving one once and dropped it
off the truck. It bounced like a big rubber ball and although it got a couple of
scratches, no real damage. A complete tank would be even stronger. I can walk
around on top of them and they only flex a tiny bit, with no worry of damage.
The nice thing about the fiberglass method is it's so easy to make wild shapes
with. In your case building saddle tanks, you can make them as curvy and
hydrodynamic as you like with way less effort than trying to weld something up
into a sleek shape.
With a complete ( envelope) tank you'll need to make it in two halves so
the mold can be removed, but because it takes several layers, only the first
layer needs to be split. Then subsequent layers are applied and a good solid
tank with no corrosion problems results. Plumbing fittings get glassed in also
during the fabrication and the glass is very strong. I'm really surprised just
how strong it really is. A plus is they will flex a bit so if you don't crash
into something REALLY hard they should be fine. Even if you get an impact crack,
it's pretty easy to fix, even in the field. Frank D. |