Now to attach this thing to the inside of the 24" pipe.
prop it up on a block, align it and lock it in place with wood strips so it can be welded.
After welding the outside.
And a view of the inside.
I couldn't figure out how to weld the inside so I basically just filled the space with caulk.
Even if it leaked a little it's no big deal because it would leak into the tank anyway.
It was plenty strong so I wasn't worried about it coming off.
Time to move on to the sides.
Because the cost of solid PVC was so expensive I decided to give the expanded PVC sheet they sell at Menards a chance.
a 4'x8'x1/2" sheet only cost $88.00. There should be enough material in a 4x8 sheet for both filters.
Combined with the $14 for the weld rods that brings the total cost for two units to $402.
I started with full length sides for alignment purposes then cut them back later after everything fit and aligned correctly.
I cut the sides at a 38 degree angle and they seemed to fit perfect. My Sieve width is 14" so I made the opening 14.25" to allow for a little wiggle room.
the next step is to build the area of the weir.
I put in a temporary EPVC block so that I could get the size I needed for the bottom of the weir.
I used card stock and kept trimming until it fit then transferred that onto a piece of solid PVC flat stock.
Here's one side of the weir bottom being fitted. You'll probably notice that the slot for the o-ring has already been cut.
I'll follow up with the details on that once the detail on the weir portion is finished.
After both weir bottoms were cut to size I welded them in place.
you can see in the bottom right corner a temporary screw for the side.
The angle of the side needed a slight adjustment. I took care of that before fastening the sides in place.
Welding continued to get better and better the more I did it. One of the keys is to watch the material closely.
You can see on the one weld where I got distracted and wasn't paying attention.
I then held the sieve in place and transferred the curve onto the side.
Then cut two pieces of the 1/2" epvc about 5/8" wide and attached them to the sides following the curve from earlier.
I glued and screwed them in place. i did need to heat the 5/8" wide pieces with a heat gun to make them easier to curve.
More on these side supports later.
If you look carefully you can see on the bottom where I began welding the bottom to the sides.
Unfortunately I got caught up on working on other things and I forgot to finish welding it.
The two extensions on the sides that you see eventually get cut off.
My next step was to put he drain in and the 3" suction line in.
Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of the process but here's a pic of the side showing the input/output/drain.
the location of the in/out/drain are based on my space restrictions in my filter pit.
In this photo you can also see the inside of the oven with the charring on it.
Now I needed to add the collection area at the bottom of the sieve.
I decided to use the solid PVC for this area. Partly because I found that welding epvc didn't work so well.
You can see in this pic that I haven't welded the inside of the drain pipe yet.
You can also see the 3" pump line. It's already welded both inside and out.
And had a bleed hole drilled in it between the side wall of the sieve and side wall of the 24" pipe.
I also notched the sieve side of the collection tray as well as angled it upward.
for the o-ring slot I took a piece of scrap material, laid it on the top of the pipe and marked the curve with a sharpie.
Then used a 3/4" straight bit to route the curve out.
I purchased an o-ring from McMaster Carr so I measured out where it would lay on the pipe.
I then translated that over to the piece of scrap (template) and centered the trim router at that point.
I fastened the template to the router, installed an 1/8" cove box bit anD ran a test on a piece of scrap pipe.
It worked beautifully. The only problem...I didn't have the bit in the right location.
After a slight adjustment it worked perfect.
Here's the router with template and bit. It took a couple tests to get my depth right.
Here's the finished channel for the o-ring
Here's the channel with the 0-ring in place.
Once I was comfortable with the fit I attached the 0-ring to the slot using 3m Super Weatherstrip adhesive.
So I should probably add the following items to the total bill.
$22 for the 0-rings from McMaster
$14 for the weatherstrip adhesive
$20 for the stainless steel screws for the bottom
$12 for Clear PVC Primer
$14 for Heavy duty PVC Cement
Total is now $484 to build 2 units.
I'm not planning on counting the cost for any tools in the cost of the build.
But a rough cost for some items...welder $80, Core box bit $10, Straight router bit $20,
I've used a table saw, Router, Trim router, Belt sander, Drill sanding disk, Torpedo heater so far.
I guess I should include the cost of the propane in this but I'll hold off for now.
At this point I glued in the front side of the weir and temporarily installed the weir deflector.
The piece of acrylic was a bit expensive at $165
it was for a piece of 1/2" x 26" x 26" only 1 piece.
Since I've been totaling the costs of this project as two I'll continue this way.
Total so far for 2 units $814
I did use two router bits on the top. the 3/4" that was used on the bottom and a 1/8" that I had on hand so I won't count the cost for it.
They really only cost around $10
First step was to use a double face tape to attach a wood block to the acrylic and make a router jig.
I threw this together with just scraps. This is how I created the circle from the square.
Then with the same jig and adjusting a little I routed the clamp hold down slot.
At this point I'll explain my thoughts on the top.
If you're familiar with the zakki it has a domed top.
This makes complete sense but I thought I'd give it a shot with being flat.
I figured if it didn't work I could go one of two ways.
1 - increase the thickness of the top to 3/4"
2 - make a jig for the 1/2" version and heat it in the oven to let it bow into a dome.
I'll cross that bridge at a later point.
I found the latches on Amazon. Expensive at $13 for 2.
I had found them a lot cheaper elsewhere but never remembered the site and I gave up searching.
The nice thing about the amazon ones is that they're not only stainless steel but black as well.
Total for latches for 1 unit $78
box of stainless steel screws $14 #10 x 3/4 self threading
This brings the total for 2 units to $998
I measured out the spacing and then created a jig to mark all the holes.
I placed 1 clamp in place then lowered the hole locations by about 3/16" to give enough tension when clamped.
I pre-drilled all the holes not going through into the inside.
Then attached all the clamps.
I cobbled together a bunch of 4" pipe to draw from the pond and connected the output to an ES8500 pump.
At the time of the video I hadn't attached all the clamps. There were only 4 on it.
Also I didn't have a valve for the waste pipe so I just used a plug.
The test was a success....but I discovered a couple of things with the test.
First, because the sieve side supports went the full length of the sieve water was just running down the length of the sides to the bottom.
I fixed this by adding additional screws to the sieve support and cutting slots in them.
I didn't want to cut all the way to the side supports because the sieve is 1/4" smaller than the distance between the side supports.
Second was that I had a slight leak in the bottom.
As a result I welded the outside of the bottom and caulked the inside.
And wished I hadn't forgot to weld the inside of the bottom.
Unfortunately because the sides, output pipe, and drain tray were all in place I couldn't get in there to weld the inside bottom.
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