Making my wells.

[OrangeQuest]

Sorry if this seems dumb but I feel I need to ask. I see a lot of guys making their live wells and bait wells out of molds, buckets and maybe other things that I don't know about but I was thinking, I know sounds risky already, Of making mine out of recycled Styrofoam. Once again coming from a furniture warehouse I get all kinks of foam. From sheets to big blocks and I have a very easy way of cutting it with a home made table hot knife.

Seems it would add flotation and less weight than plywood and glass. I can use it for the core and just glass the inside and outside? Seems it would offer better support for fitting and it is free and I have a lot of it.

After my boat is finished I plan on using it to make a portable floating dock.

Thank you in advance, anyone that can steer me in the correct way to do this or advise to go back to trolling.

Ken J

[fallguy1000]

Ken.

No.

Styrofoam has the one thing going for it that you don’t want in a livewell. It is an open cell foam. You may rationalize and say, “it’ll be in epoxy”.

Fine unless it develops a leak ever, anywhere.

Styrofoam has only one place in a boat. That is under seats or as flotation when it can’t typically take on water.

Now, devil’s advocates might say styro is fine IF you encase it in glass and epoxy, but for 25 bux; you can buy a sheet of polystyrene that is a closed cell foam that has absorption rates nearer to zero.

A real life example...hot tub covers over time get steam ingress and get heavier and heavier and lose the insulating value and start tearing covers and need replacement.

Styrofoam could be used in a boat cooler where you can monitor for ingress. Otherwise, I’d ise a closed cell foam for wells.

[fallguy1000]

However, styrofoam hitting the trash has always bugged me, so if you can reconfigure it for use in boats that doesn’t allow water; it’d be golden.

[OrangeQuest]

Fallguy Thank you. I understand your reasoning. With epoxy not sticking to PVC very well all my drains will at some point start letting water get to the foam.

One of the things we do as a kayaking company is clean up of the waterways and paddle trails. Plastic bottles and Styrofoam are a big problem. I am not a tree hunger but I do take the big chucks and large sheets when I can. I have 4, 48"X36"X26" blocks that I cut in half for my "dock".

[Dutch1]

OrangeQuest,
If you sand your pvc the epoxy will stick. I did a hand full of tests and found when you sand the pvc it takes off some kind of coating. I don't know if that gets on there from the manufacturing process. If it was left on, epoxy wouldn't stick real well. If the coating was removed and pvc buffed up, I couldn't get the epoxy off of there without doing damage which was good enough for my needs to prove it would work.

Hope this helps.
Thanks,
Steve

[fallguy1000]

I have some low density west system filler that sticks well to roughened pvc, but the pvc is not subject to movement.

[Dutch1]

I have some low density west system filler that sticks well to roughened pvc, but the pvc is not subject to movement.

Please elaborate. Do you mean from vibrations, etc.? Just want to learn as much as I can.

[OrangeQuest]

OrangeQuest,
If you sand your pvc the epoxy will stick. I did a hand full of tests and found when you sand the pvc it takes off some kind of coating. I don't know if that gets on there from the manufacturing process. If it was left on, epoxy wouldn't stick real well. If the coating was removed and pvc buffed up, I couldn't get the epoxy off of there without doing damage which was good enough for my needs to prove it would work.

Hope this helps.
Thanks,
Steve

Thanks Steve!

I don't know if you seen my diagram of my single pump bait well/live well but I plan on using PVC as much as I can for all the valves and piping. I think is call for 4 or 6 ball valves. I have been playing around with flaring the ends of the pipe with heat gun, wooden dowel and big washer forced on the dowel. I want my drains flush to the bottom of the tanks to drain completely. I was thinking of using 5200 to seal and hold all my fitting and it would allow the fitting to flex some. I too am trying to learn as much as possible and cut down on the trail and error method of learning.

Thanks again Dutch1 and Fallguy,
Ken J

[silentneko]

I've used Styrofoam to build a few live wells. Fallguy, what type of Styrofoam is open cell? When I think of Styrofoam I think of the white compressed pellets they make dock floats and crab pot floats out of.

When I did my past live wells either they needed several layers of glass, or else the sides could be punctured. On my last one I used thin ply to cover the foam. The reason I used the foam is the live well can now act as a day cooler.

[OrangeQuest]

The beads of foam is the kind I have. But if it has to have multiple layers of glass it maybe more economical to use thin sheets of plywood on the inside with foam on the outside, reinforced where the fittings go through. Seems most igloo coolers have foam sandwiched in plastic. Any we pick up on cleans the older they are the more water they have between the layers. But they also use expanding foam. Also some of our old paddle boards used a combination of Styrofoam and expanding foam and once water got in everything came apart. They did not use any kind of glue to hold the Styrofoam and the expanding foam dissolved for the most part but they sucked and were VERY water logged. But the Styrofoam didn't seem to hold any water.

To cut the foam I use nickel-chromium wire. Most art supply store sell it in 48" lengths and less than $5.00. I run a #8X32 bolts through 2- 1"X2" and clamp them to my work bench vertical and attach nuts washers and wind the wire around the bolts a few times and tighten with the nuts. I then attach a variable voltage supply to each end and adjust power to get a good cut. 2"x4" clamped on as a fence and slow push the blocks through the wire. Can adjust the 1"x2"s to make different angles and no white "dust" at all. To fast and the wire will break, to much voltage and the wire burns up. Endless possibilities on cutting foam. Can even make a scroll knife this way!

My collection.