Acrylic fabrication questions? I can help!

you can use the #25 needle for 1/4", no problem, it just might take a bit longer to run the joint. So if it is a small/short joint that's ok. For a long joint you might need 2 bottles and an extra hand so you could both start from different points and meet in the middle, or both start in the middle and work outward.

what is the project?
 
wanted to start practicing joints, and maybe start making the external box for my overflow.

Found these with a local guy. Well I say local, an hour away.

http://www.amazon.com/Gaunt-Industries-HYPO-35-Applicator-Plastic/dp/B00PKCJK4K

Really don't want to wait 7-10 days for them to ground ship the stuff to me from craftics. It has to be ground shipped apparently cause it is flammable. Heaven forbid they put 4 oz of lighter fluid on a plane with 60,000 lbs of jet fuel.
 
I finished gluing my media baskets together today. How long do I need them to set before I can put them in the aquarium with the weld on 16?
 
repair

repair

I picked up an old sump on the cheap and it looks like a heater was run hot and caused a crack in the side and bottom?? I was planning on just covering the defect with new acrylic patches. Does this sound like a feasible repair? Any guidance on how big the patches should be ie just bigger then the crack or as big as the entire panel etc. I will throw up some pictures to help you guys determine the extent of the damage.

IMG_20150306_142600_270.jpg


IMG_20150306_142638_929.jpg


IMG_20150306_142658_263.jpg
 
That's a dangerous crack because it's in the corner. The top crack in the vertical panel can be patched over but unless you fix the other one, it's not going to matter.

the melted area makes it pretty hard to patch over the crack because ideally you want to drill a small hole on both ends of the crack and then sandwich it with 2 piece that are about 1" larger than the damaged area. Problem is, the melted part. You might sand it down but hard to say if that will allow you to patch it well enough

The bottom crack in the vertical panel is really close to the seam and it looks like this continues through the bottom panel. You may be able to put a triangle gusset in the corner and bond it in with weldon 40, after you sand down that burnt area

I would say this is possibly repairable...but I don't know how it would hold up over the long term. The bigger the patch, the better I would say. Hope you didn't pay too much for it :(
 
Floyd R Turbo said:
That's a dangerous crack because it's in the corner. The top crack in the vertical panel can be patched over but unless you fix the other one, it's not going to matter.

the melted area makes it pretty hard to patch over the crack because ideally you want to drill a small hole on both ends of the crack and then sandwich it with 2 piece that are about 1" larger than the damaged area. Problem is, the melted part. You might sand it down but hard to say if that will allow you to patch it well enough

The bottom crack in the vertical panel is really close to the seam and it looks like this continues through the bottom panel. You may be able to put a triangle gusset in the corner and bond it in with weldon 40, after you sand down that burnt area

I would say this is possibly repairable...but I don't know how it would hold up over the long term. The bigger the patch, the better I would say. Hope you didn't pay too much for it :(
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice Floyd. The thing you see in the bottom pane is actually another crack on the bottom pane inside I didn't get a picture of not either of those cracks on the side wall. I will check the melted part to see how the surface feels. I have a whole full sheet of 1/4 acrylite sitting in my barn that was bought for another project that I can salvage any size piece from for repairs. I got this in a package deal for 3 sumps so I won't be too upset but I was hoping to use this on my new 150g....

Also is methochloride OK to use when patching? It is what I have on hand from a local plastic shop.
 
Methylene Chloride is the staple product for solvent welding, so yes, that is the stuff to use.

If you have another crack in the bottom panel, you're gonna be doing a lot of patching to get that to work. With the full 4x8 sheet of acrylite, why not just make a new one?
 
It will be interesting to see how ATM handles this.

Is this the inherent risk you run with acrylic tanks? It seems that acrylic tanks are far more likely to suffer failure versus glass tanks. Is this construction error or just a shortcoming of acrylic?
 
Well, you can't make big tanks out of glass very often. There is a physical limit to the size of the glass panel that you can get until cost skyrockets, add to that the immense weight of a huge glass tank and it becomes completely unfeasible.

So the only reason you see big acrylic tanks failing is because there are no big glass tanks to fail.
 
Good point. I would imagine if glass were an option, nineball would have the means to make it happen. I've think I've seen some pretty larger tanks assembled on site through this forum, but maybe a 16 foot long panel is not feasible.

Reading that whole update has led me to the conclusion that I do not have a sufficient emergency plan in place for my aquarium. Hell, I haven't even had any dialogue with my insurance company regarding what I could expect to happen in the event of a catastrophe. I'm in the process of a major system overhaul and these are very important things to have ironed out.
 
So Floyd - any insight on to how a tank fails like this after 5 years? What kind of manufacturer flaw would lead to this? And is there any regular inspection that can help the rest of us avoid a similar issue?
 
adova said:
So Floyd - any insight on to how a tank fails like this after 5 years? What kind of manufacturer flaw would lead to this? And is there any regular inspection that can help the rest of us avoid a similar issue?
Click to expand...

Well I met Peter at MACNA2011 when we hosted it in Des Moines and the tank was only a year old at that point, roughly....in the first split, he was aquascaping in August 2010.

This comes down to the old debate, which has been brought up on this thread before, about the bond strength of solvent welded joints vs 2-part joints.

I guess I can't say for sure which type of joint this was. What I can say is that according to Peter, the entire tank was cleaned and inspected every 3 days religiously. So any signs of pending failure would probably not have gone unnoticed. This is clearly a sudden, not gradual, failure.

I would poke James but last I heard from him was that he was not feeling well and that was weeks ago. So at this point I think I'll reserve my opinion.
 
I've seen them use both solvent and 2 part on the show. But I would imagine if the seam looked clean (bubble-less) and instantly let go it was 2 part. From what I read you really need to anneal a tank put together that way to reach maximum strength and I highly doubt they did.

I welded my first piece of 1/4" scrap last night and the seam looked perfect. I think I used to much #4 though cause the inside corner looks like the solvent ran through the seam and mucked up the acrylic. Structurally sound, just ugly. Going to try again tonight with a lighter touch and I'll probably post pics also.
 
Ok, so after awhile of waiting I finally went to my local plastics guy and got a sheet of clear and a sheet of black to make an overflow kit and a ATS. I machined a few pieces of scrap to practice solvent welding. I used my homemade router table with a solid carbide 2 flute straight bit to clean up the edges and my first attempt went really well. Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to get the outer box built for my overflow.

Acrylic Snow!

<a href="http://s1383.photobucket.com/user/tstanley01/media/IMG_2161_zpsaih7k9ea.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1383.photobucket.com/albums/ah305/tstanley01/IMG_2161_zpsaih7k9ea.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo IMG_2161_zpsaih7k9ea.jpg"/></a>

I used 24 gauge steel wire for hanging picture frames as my spacers and a 22 gauge squeeze applicator from Craftics to apply the weld-on 4.

<a href="http://s1383.photobucket.com/user/tstanley01/media/IMG_2163_zpsj5jc6esv.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1383.photobucket.com/albums/ah305/tstanley01/IMG_2163_zpsj5jc6esv.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo IMG_2163_zpsj5jc6esv.jpg"/></a>

<a href="http://s1383.photobucket.com/user/tstanley01/media/IMG_2164_zpshnkivczr.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1383.photobucket.com/albums/ah305/tstanley01/IMG_2164_zpshnkivczr.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo IMG_2164_zpshnkivczr.jpg"/></a>

<a href="http://s1383.photobucket.com/user/tstanley01/media/IMG_2166_zpssveubs9q.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1383.photobucket.com/albums/ah305/tstanley01/IMG_2166_zpssveubs9q.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo IMG_2166_zpssveubs9q.jpg"/></a>

Final seam looks great! Thanks to Turbo and a few others for giving guidance. I can't imagine trying to figure this out on your own.

a>
 
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