2" acrylic crazy DIY project ideas?

[michaelkittrell]

So I found 3 pieces of 2" acrylic that looks really crappy. Each piece is about 5' long and 24" wide.

So... I was thinking, what if I buy it, sand and buff it out. Those would be some pretty nice pieces even if I had to take off 1/4" on each side to get the scratches out..

But it seems kind of silly to use 2" acrylic to make a normal tank. So I came up with two ideas.

1. build a brick oven (or find an industrial oven in town to use) and bend all 3 pieces around a form with a 24" radius. Solvent weld them together and make a 4' wide cylindrical tank. retail price for a tank like this seems to be around $5,500.

2. solvent weld all 3 pieces into a 6'x5' sheet and make an insanely deep plywood or cement aquarium or use it as the top of a shallow in floor aquarium.

The problem with #1 is... the opportunity cost. If I fail (which is highly likely)... its not like 2" acrylic is just falling into my lap every day. I suppose I could try this on one sheet and if it fails, I could still build a 4x5 sheet with the remaining 2 pieces.

The problem with #2 is the lighting and the maintenance. With a deep aquarium, I have no idea what I would stock... and I know that I'm not getting inside of it more than once in a long while (if that). It'd almost have to be bare bottom, fish only. That's not really my cup of tea, I prefer reefs.

If I went with the in floor, I have to rig up a frame and a pulley system so the top could be lifted out of the floor. I'd need a lighting system that could be lowered onto the floor since this would be a reef tank. Target feeding and the plumbing are going to be a PITA.

Let me know if you have any ideas.

 

[scott3569]

bare with me here I am new to the hobby, but what about having them cut in have thickness wise..that should still give you a wall of 3/4 inch(i have no idea how thick acrylic needs to be) but that would give you more to work with and maybe a bigger tank???

 

[michaelkittrell]

That's a decent idea. I'd have to pay someone to cut it as my bandsaw only resaws up to about 12". Also, I imagine a lot of heat would be generated which would probably melt the acrylic some and gum up the blades.

I'll check it out. Thanks for the idea.

== checked it out.

While I couldn't find anyone resawing acrylic, there are apparently some really nice tablesaw blades that making amazingly smooth cuts. I found some info on cutting "thicker" acrylic with a bandsaw that suggests fewer teeth per inch (which is counter intuitive to me) and wider blades (also counter intutive) is best. Apparently it works pretty well because the blades clear out the shavings so they don't gum up the blade (as compared to a scroll saw).

sanding... is apparently going to be a real pain... if you sand too fast it melts, so sand for 2 seconds, let it cool for 6 seconds. They actually recommend using a carbide scrapper over sand paper to fix a rough cut. *boggle* this may not work after all.

 

[scott3569]

yeah I am not sure where you would find someone to slice it in half..maybe you might be able to get lucky going to your big box hardware store and asking them. I don't know what kind of sander your using, but I would image a low speed sander is going to be the best or a variable speed that can be turned down

 

[dattack]

Go to a plastic place and have them cut it for you. Shouldn't cost too much although some places try to rip you off. Maybe a local cabinet maker or woodshop should be able to cut them. It will take a lot of elbow grease to sand it to crystal clear. Do a search and you will get an idea on polishing scratches.

 

[GTboosted]

Trying to polish it would be a huge pain!

With that said, I think huge built in basement tank would be sweet.

 

[Dapg8gt]

I really don't think you can slice it in half like that.. Ask in the acrylic q&a thread but I doubt you can do that..

 

[john08007]

Second the idea of it being next to impossible to slice a 2" thick piece of acrylic in half, also not to sure about what kinda condition this must be in if you have to take almost 1/4" off to make it clear. For a Diy'er at home I think it is going to me next to impossible for you to get a 2" thick piece of acrylic bent into an arc, I've working with acrylic and seen it done in the manner you are saying, I've also seen forklifts used to move around a piece of acrylic that size. Also, once the acrylic is arc'd it then requires an angle cut on the end along with the pieces that will be the sides, once again I think that is out of the realm of a normal home shop with a size that thick. Maybe make a table or desk, polish it up and it could be pretty cool.

 

[RatReef]

not gonna resaw it....that's just cray cray

 

[mgraf]

I think both ideas are a bit far fetched. I think with a little work and some wet power sanding you could get it polished easier than you may think. May be just consider using the pieces to DIY built bottom and back wall of tank. Maybe even consider building sides. I would get a nice sheet to build the viewable front. For it to save any money, you would need to DIY.
I would think that if you took it to an acrylic fabricating shop it would cost you a pretty penny to have worked. Every company bases some of their profit off of sales of material. If you take away that end of the profit, the cost of the labor would have to go up. In the long run, a shop would much rather sell you new acrylic and build a tank for you, than to use old scratched up, bowed, chipped material that came out of a garage. It's so much harder to work with and produce a quality product that they would put their name on. And the price will reflect that. In short, it costs a lot of money to "polish" a turd, and usually you end up with a polished turd.
Not trying to be offensive, it's just the way it is.

 

[shifty51008]

make a cold water tank, the 2" thickness will be great for keeping the water cool and condinsation off the outside .

 

[michaelkittrell]

I think it'll be easier to bend than one would think. Also, the pieces are not that large, a 4x8 sheet 2" thick weighs 400 pounds. The biggest of the pieces I mentioned weighs ~ 150 lbs.

You're probably right about it being a polished turd, but I think I'm going to do it anyway as a test. If it goes ok then I'll have my friend in the import business order me 1000 kg of 2" acrylic from china.

 

[michaelkittrell]

make a cold water tank, the 2" thickness will be great for keeping the water cool and condinsation off the outside .

I like that idea thx!

 

[sfsuphysics]

I wouldn't go for a cylinder tank, at 4' diameter you're going to have some nasty refractive issues especially for the thickness of that acrylic.

While I a large pane seems nice, there's a few issues there, 1) it's not going to be as strong as a single pane, but ignoring that fact 2) you'll never be able to buff the joints clear it'll be a massive eye sore.

Other ideas... how about a 5' tall thin aquarium? Kind of like a table side. Although with only 3 pieces you're kind of hosed for a third side. Maybe chop off 1 & 1/4 feet from each pane and you can jigsaw the back pane with the 3 pieces then buy something from the bottom, then it'll be 3.75' tall not too bad for a couch side end table/aquarium.

I got my hands on a few 1" thick acrylic panes, 4' long and 6' long pieces that are only 8" thick. My first thought was a large rimless frag tank. You could do something like that if you split those 5' pieces in half 12" is decent for a frag tank, and 5' x 5' and rimless 2" thick should be fine without any bowing.

 

[michaelkittrell]

I wouldn't go for a cylinder tank, at 4' diameter you're going to have some nasty refractive issues especially for the thickness of that acrylic.

While I a large pane seems nice, there's a few issues there, 1) it's not going to be as strong as a single pane, but ignoring that fact 2) you'll never be able to buff the joints clear it'll be a massive eye sore.

Other ideas... how about a 5' tall thin aquarium? Kind of like a table side. Although with only 3 pieces you're kind of hosed for a third side. Maybe chop off 1 & 1/4 feet from each pane and you can jigsaw the back pane with the 3 pieces then buy something from the bottom, then it'll be 3.75' tall not too bad for a couch side end table/aquarium.

I got my hands on a few 1" thick acrylic panes, 4' long and 6' long pieces that are only 8" thick. My first thought was a large rimless frag tank. You could do something like that if you split those 5' pieces in half 12" is decent for a frag tank, and 5' x 5' and rimless 2" thick should be fine without any bowing.

Do you have any ideas on what to stock said tank with?

I thought about doing something that but with inside dimensions of 24" square, getting down into the bottom of that tank would be impossible for maintenance. The lighting would be impossible so no corals at the bottom which would make it a FO... but that really doesn't make sense unlses you have fish taht like to swim up and down. If I could find the right livestock for it, that might make sense... maybe a jellyfish tank or something...

Didn't think about the refractive issues. I just assumed they would be fine since there are plenty of cylinder tanks.

 

[Ryan2013]

You mentioned doing a built in tank in your basement. Why not do a plywood tank and have the 2" acrylic on the front? You could make it really long if you frame it with 2x4 and glue two if the pieces together at the middle.

 

[michaelkittrell]

You mentioned doing a built in tank in your basement. Why not do a plywood tank and have the 2" acrylic on the front? You could make it really long if you frame it with 2x4 and glue two if the pieces together at the middle.

Not a bad idea, but I think I'd just buy some 1/2" glass unless I wanted to run it cold water. That could be fun.

 

[Schplitter]

All of this sounds good on paper but unless you have massive experience working with acrylic I would stay away from this.

Bending acrylic that thickness takes several steps with temperatures set to exact specifications. There may be .2 C variance at most so you don;t end up with waves. The form you need to build for this will cost a ton of money also. there are specialty materials involved. It takes day to do this.

Bonding acrylic at 2" thick without having the seam show is also a very difficult thing to accomplish. Unless you have the tools to do this already it's just too costly. The solvents are very expensive also. You will need to have a space that is climate and humidity controlled. Variance in humidity will cause bubbles and crazing.

To be honest I would try to make a regular box tank. Maybe a rimless tank would be cool enough. Anything past this will be out of the scope of price and feasibility for a DIY.

 

[TriNewbie24]

Weld-on 40/42 ($300+ applicator gun for 42) would be needed to bond the panels together. Why not use it to build a good size rimless tank? To get great results refinishing, you'd need to wetsand with an air DA sander and micromesh (need big compressor). Which will take a long time, then you'd need a real good rotary buffer to polish it. It's going to be labor intensive but sitting on a good amount of money right there. I'd build the biggest rimless tank I could with that if it was me.

 

[widmer]

In its own little (thick?) way, this sounds sort of like winning the lottery and deciding what to do with the money. I think the easiest, most cost-effective and overall enjoyable thing to do would be either of the following:

1. As you mentioned in your original post, make an approximately 6 foot by 6 foot by 5 foot tank with it (LxWxH) using the 3 pieces of acrylic as the front panel. Yes, that is about 1,300 gallons.

2. Making a 5 foot by 5 foot by 2 foot tank with it (LxWxH) using each piece as a side, with a separate material back and bottom. This is ~375 gallons.

I personally prefer option 2 and think that it would be the most reasonable to achieve as well.

Happy reefing!