We were approached by Rother District Council to give a quotation for applying a stone finish to the face of a new sun clock project on Bexhill Promenade. We looked at the project and decided that it would be a lovely opportunity to give something back to our home town and community, and offered to undertake the work free of charge. The Parks & Leisure Dept. of Rother District Council accepted our offer and the work completed in the Spring of 2003.

The specification was to have a surface that was in keeping with the surroundings. We proposed a shingle like pea gravel that would be in keeping with a seaside town, safe for children to play on, yet is very hard wearing and durable.

The pea gravel was bonded to the prepared concrete surface with Addastone epoxy resin.

Shown is the finished sun clock in use.

Plymouth Marine Laboratories are one of Britain’s most important marine research facilities monitoring environmental matters in the waters around the world from the Artic to the Antarctic.

Plymouth Marine Laboratories approached us for a food contact grade lining that could be applied in situ to their fibreglass mesocosm tank, which is used for the collection of deep-sea water samples. The problem they had was two-fold. One the tank was leaking and they were unable to locate where it was leaking; and the second was that the lining to be used had to be very pure and not contaminate the seawater sample.

We thought that the best solution was to completely reline the tank. We lightly abraded the internal surface by shot blasting, applied a new layer of fibreglass inside the tank bonded together with a food grade solvent free epoxy resin lining. During our work there we found that the floor of the tank was flexing due to a cavity under the tank where over the years the concrete had eroded creating movement of the floor as the tank was filled and emptied and fine cracks had formed at the base of the tank. We needed to fill the cavity but we could not move the tank and to inject the floor with a cement mixture would not have worked because of residual salt water under the tank. We therefore used an epoxy mix which filled the cavity and displaced the water and hardened very quickly thus solving the problem. The holes in the floor were sealed with epoxy resin plugs and then the whole floor was coated with the same system as was used on the walls and ceiling of the tank.