Acrylic fabrication questions? I can help!

Thank you Floyd !

If the tank is made with 20mm material and single piece euro brace but with wo40 would you worry ? Heck it is made of acrylite GP . The size is 100" length , 36" height , 18" deep. It's a beautiful bubble free joint. If there is no whitening at joints it means the seams are safe right ? Me and my friend made it in the garage after lot of practice on the scrap . Its holding great for last 1 month . My pc7518 router and Whiteside bits are not giving me beautiful plane joints to try solvent , the marks are having wavy router marks. I m using spiral up cut 2" long bits. Just tried e everything from slow to medium to fast feed rates.
What would you reckon on it?
 
Well no matter what method you use to bond acrylic, IMO you should get smooth cuts. I dunno much about WO40, just what James has wrote on here. Maybe he can comment.

On you edge finishing, sounds like you are maybe starting and stopping? By that I mean making little pauses to move your grip? You need to make the final trim in one continuous fluid motion, which means an outfeed roller or a large router table and a good fence.
 
Thanks Floyd. Ok so the 2 sections:

1. On the WO40 and the new tank that we made. Just need you or James or any other expert to flag if there is any danger so we can check that. Its a single euro brace with 2 cutouts in the center.
2. No I'm not taking any stop. pause method, it is a single flow cut. Whether I use the router in hand or mounted on table those wavy joints fail me completely, not able to understand what the issue is. I'm doing everything this thread describes to do :(
 
Acrylics said:
looks like the tank popped along a cast joint.. hence my disdain for cast joints. You can never really tell how much the WO40 (or similar resin) actually *bites* into the material. And this tank was built by one of the best mfrs in the world.

and I've got one going out next week with 2 cast (color transition) joints.. ugh :(
Click to expand...

here is a quote from James about WO 40 and another tank that popped. Hope that helps.
-Paul
 
Thanks everyone . I m feeling lost trying to understand how to verify whether the wo 40 has "good enough bite" into the material. . Should the whole tank be heated to certain temp to increase its strength ?
 
You're talking about annealing the tank. The idea here is to heat and cool slowly so that the matrices re-align. This is all way too much trouble and really does not gain you anything. I would try to nail down your issue with edge prep, because WO40 is IMO for experts only. yeah you can get invisible looking joints, but what good does that do you if it won't hold.

As for the 'bite' issue, methylene chloride actually dissovles the material on either side of the joint, then evaporates leaving the material joined. This is bite. WO40 is a 2-part glue essentially, and while it does heat up and does have property of dissolving each side of the joint, how much it does this depends greatly on the product used.

Also, acrylic GP is out because anything under 1" is made in China now and has not been tested by the industry. Only Polycast and Plex-G
 
I agree with Floyd. I think Jame's point about WO 40 was that there is no way to tell how strong the joint is.
 
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I want to make an acrylic sump for my 55 gallon tank.
I've never tried building anything out of acrylic, where can I get some information on how to do this?

Thanks;

Steve
 
:hmm4:I'm so torn between upgrading my tank just trying to decide on glass or acrylic. Some quotes I got from some glass manufactures were 4000$ or more. One place quoted me 2700 and one place has tank listed for 1000$ on website before modifications to it. Or acrylic tank for about 1600...:confused:
Corey
 
Sacohon - this thread is immense, but worth reading. I read it from start to finish, all 3 split sections. Took a few weeks. Like any big thread, once you get to a certain point, many questions are repeated. But it's totally worth it if you want to try to do it right. You will find this information no where else, at least not to my knowledge, at least not in as much detail.
 
Just found this thread... I will start reading it but I am looking at building an acrylic frag tank. I just want a really short tank and I am willing to put the euro brace on if needed but trying to determine what thickness I really need.

I am thinking 24x24x8 or 24x24x10

Thanks!
 
you can do that but I would recommend the euro, even if it's only an inch. I have made a few rimless show frag tanks 36 x 24 x 8 out of 3/8" and they're fine for a few days at a time, but no good for daily use IMO - they bow too much over time. I've seen 48x12x10 frag tanks that blew out after a few years, ripped the corner seams right apart.

If you want to do rimless, do 1/2" material or better for 8", 10" I might go to 3/4" even

Oh hey I just realized who I was responding to! Hello! It's a FedEx Wednesday for you, isn't it?
 
Thanks! I just got my shipment from you by the way stellar work :)

Is there a good place online to buy acrylic or should I really be calling around locally?
 
Sabic Polymershapes in Brooklyn Park I believe, John Gerdes is the guy I spoke with (a couple years ago). That is where Midwest Custom Aquariums gets all their stock from so they are used to the aquarium client and stock pretty much whatever you would want (including Polycast)
 
Sacohen said:
I want to make an acrylic sump for my 55 gallon tank.
I've never tried building anything out of acrylic, where can I get some information on how to do this?

Thanks;

Steve
Click to expand...

I will +1 With Floyd on this.
I have done A LOT of research on the net regarding any type of acrylic work.
This is the ONLY place that has all the info you need to build a water tight vessel correctly.
As Floyd stated it will take a while to read, but worth it.
Good luck.
 
Probably been asked time and time again, but i'll give her a whirl.

My glass sump cracked. A friend offered me a free acrylic tank. 48X12X20 (Eurobraced), I cut off the top two inches of the tank. Using my tablesaw.(40 tooth freud sawblade). Edge seems to be good enough for a sump. I have a few Questions.. I am going to use weldon 4SC to install the baffles. How long do i have to wait, before i can fill and run sump? Will the Baffles be support enough for the tank now that the eurobracing is gone?

thanks for the info.

Johnny
 
I'm needing a little advice... My choice of acrylic locally is almost nothing, what I can get is 3 or 4 times what others are paying. So, from the advice of others, I ordered material from estreetplastics.com. Their site says you will get one of several brands, plexiglas acrylite lucite chemcast, depending on what was in stock..... Anyway, I tried to contact them beforehand to find out what brand I might get as I didn't want lucite. I didn't get an answer, so I ordered anyway figuring a sump out of lucite isn't the end of the world. But, what I got was Marga Cipta, which I had never heard of before. Of course, the first thing I do is search this thread. I've seen it mentioned a couple times and everything says its not good acrylic...GREAT! Is there any way to make this stuff work? Maybe a different solvent, other than weld-on 4?

My plan is/was to build a 48"x20"x20" sump out of 3/8" front, back and ends with 1/4" bottom and 1/4" euro bracing with a center support.

:headwally:
 
Dude, bummer. I looked up Sabic's locations and your closest is Dallas, 5+ hrs away ugh...my closets is 2 hours each way and that makes it worth it for multiple sheets, or $100 for up to a pallet delivered to me.

Good to know that estreetplastics is a junk warehouse though. Probably good for anyone NOT building a tank.

Sorry man. James might be able to answer your question, I got nothin.

You might check with a local sign shop, if you have one, if they order acrylic from someplace then you might get them to piggyback a couple sheets on to their shipment. That's what I started doing, my CNC shop is also a sign shop, so I hooked them up with my supplier (Sabic) and now when I want a couple sheets they just throw it on their bulk order and presto - no trip, no ship, golden.
 
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