Non Boat Stich & Glue

I have reading up on Stitch and Glue construction and I have built S&G aquariums and I wanted to go bigger so looking for guidance and feedback.

I am looking to build a small pond 16' x 8' 4'. 1/4" ply epoxy encapsulated with epoxy and cloth on the inside.

I have drawn it in a kidney shape without any straight runs and all curves for strength.

Thought and Ideas?

 

If your not burring it then you need to know if the weight of the water will bend the top edges outward. I cannot help you with that.

 

1/4" plywood will serve as a mold for the goo and fabric overlay. It certainly will not be sufficient with a light sheathing. Assuming about 512 cubic feet of volume and about 62 pounds per cubic foot of water, well you can see, it'll need to be fairly hefty. I'm not sure what your crosshatch pattern thing is all about, what it's made of, how it's attached, so . . . Lastly, you'll likely have some issues attempting to bend plywood around that shape. The two bulbous portions at each end appear to have a pretty tight radius, which terminate on an abrupt edge, which plywood doesn't like much. In short, yeah, this can be done, but it'll be a heavy 'glass laminate, over a light plywood mold. I'd probably be inclined to choose a different approuch and/or shape, so the mold can more greatly participate in the structure and accommodate the curves too. If thinking 'glass, maybe a plaster mold, which is very easy to shape. It's not going to offer any structure, but you can have any shape you can whittle up.

 

Thanks for the responses
It will be half way under ground.
As far as the shape anything that is around 16*8*4, oval shaped? Or just a rectangle.
I was thinking that rounded would be stronger, I could build a box beam around the top to counter flexing outward. I was thinking that adding the cross hatch to the outside surface to give strength like a hollow core door.

 

You would be better off to use the low coast Aquaculture technique to ponds - make it out of cement with a chicken wire core, and fibreglass the inside for increased waterproofing.

 

I've seen entire pools made by simply using plywood and covered with pool liner or in your case a pond liner fabric

 

It would be far stronger to go round.

 

You look to be fairly flexible on shape so I'd be looking at a used spa pool or unwanted small pool. They have people who trade them in Perth so I'd imagine you'd have someone in the trade in Dallas.

 

Ken,

I assume you are making a pond, in the ground?
The curves on that shape almost certainly cannot be made with 1/4" plywood. I'm not sure you could do it with 1/8".
You wouldn't want to put any wood shape in the ground without glass epoxy completely covering both sides.
If you can get the shape in the ground and supported well by the ground you wouldn't have to make it real thick wood, but getting a good fill might be chancy.

Take a look at the boats on clcboats.com to look at reasonable shapes for plywood.
Of course building the sides using vertical staves could give you almost any shape you want with a lot of work. You could look at wooden water tanks or bath tubs (I've seen a few).

The small curves running into the "sharp" corners will be the worst feature for strength.

If you look at the video build guide for the Microbootlegger kayak on Guillemot kayaks for the "coaming" you will see the basic method. http://www.guillemot-kayaks.com/guillemot/blog/nick/installing_coaming_riser Of course it would be a lot different given the depth you want.