There was (at one time at least) a method of coating big ship tanks called Flote Cote.
The tank would be filled with water, paint poured on top of the water, then the water slowly pumped out of the tank. The paint would cling to the steel as the water level descended. I have no idea how well it worked. I once watched an "impossible" pumping operation on a tanker. The deck gang was cleaning tanks and were pumping the last bits of water from the bottom of the 50' deep tanks. They used air operated diaphragm pumps sitting on deck with the water spewing from the pumps and running across the deck and overboard. >From what I understood of physics what was happening was impossible. One cannot suck water from any deeper than about 30' since one makes a vacuum with the pump and air pressure (about 15psi) pushes the water (about a half a pound per foot) column up. If the column is heavier than 15psi it won't go up. Turns out that the bottom end of the suction hose had a section of pipe on it with a small hole drilled in the pipe above the water level. This allowed air in to form bubbles and make the water lighter allowing the water/air mixture to be sucked up to the deck. I regret not remembering what size the drilled hole was. Norm S/V Bandersnatch Lying Julington Creek FL N30 07.68 W081 38.47 > Actually, I did the reverse of the usual method: fed a wire down the > pipe, attached a rag to it at the top, and pulled it down a bit; then, > while having a helper slowly pull it, I poured a whole lot of paint down > after it (that way, I had a tall "stack" of liquid paint following the > rag - and it wasn't being wiped off.) When the rag got to the bottom, I > climbed down, stuck the paint bucket under the pipe, pulled out the rag, > and caught (most of) the paint. Then we repeated the drill a couple of > hours later, and again later still. Messy, but certainly better than the > usual. > _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
