Acrylic fabrication questions? I can help!

[Kaiser24]

the cracks are all at the top. there seems to be some crazing as well. I attached a pic. is there a place I could go or someone who could cut it and have braces added?

 

[ccuk]

hi guys can you help
6ft x 3ft x3ft braced central wier
acrylic thickness please ?
stew

 

[adova]

hi guys can you help
6ft x 3ft x3ft braced central wier
acrylic thickness please ?
stew

Checking to see if my skillz are improving, but I am going to say 1" with 3-4" Eurobracing with minimal bowing and @ 3/4" perhaps some bowing. Wait to confirm with the others, though...

 

[ccuk]

cheers adova

 

[adova]

cheers adova

Now watch me be entirely wrong, lol. What are you going to do with a tank that deep. Fish only? I feel for the guy that has to get his hands down to the bottom!

 

[rfgonzo]

hi guys can you help
6ft x 3ft x3ft braced central wier
acrylic thickness please ?
stew

I say 1'' min at 36'' H with 3'' brace around tank and 6'' cross brace the center.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

the cracks are all at the top. there seems to be some crazing as well. I attached a pic. is there a place I could go or someone who could cut it and have braces added?

That's some pretty bad crazing. It doesn't look pretty, it's a sign of stress (bad tank, bad stand, flame polishing, etc) but doesn't mean it is or is not going to explode.

On the tank cutting, no clue. I've done it, it's tricky. one thing to consider is that the more height you leave on the tank, the less it will bow. So if you cut to 9" and put 8" of water in it vs 12-15" with 8" of water, less bow. At a minimum, crossbraces. ideally, new euro.

hi guys can you help
6ft x 3ft x3ft braced central wier
acrylic thickness please ?
stew

I say 1'' min at 36'' H with 3'' brace around tank and 6'' cross brace the center.

^ this

 

[cromag08]

Ok so what do you guys do when you go to weld on the bottom piece and you find out the 4 sides are not 100% the same length? nothing crazy, maybe 1/16". ugggg.......

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

You new the measurements if the bottom panel? As long as it's oversized to create a fillet, it doesn't really matter because that gets trimmed off.

 

[cromag08]

Sorry, maybe I meant to say the 4 sides are not the same height (not length).

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

So you mean the front, back, and sides are different height? That should have been noticed when you bonded those together. Still confused

 

[cromag08]

Yeah unfortunately I didn't notice one of the sides was about 1/16" off from the rest. should I scrape it down a little?

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

1/16" is a big gap. You need to scrape that way down, all the way across the joint. If it's off equally at both corner, you can actually route most of that off if you're careful

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

...assuming you have a good sized router table.

 

[cromag08]

Yeah router is safest bet. it's a small ato box so I have a large enough table. scraping is too sketchy imo. thanks.

 

[guserto4]

If I did a 48x20x14" using a top but only about 1" in width solid lip around the edge (1" radius at corners) with no center brace so it's sort of quasi rimless, do you think I could go 1/2"?

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

I've done tanks with a narrow brace like that before but I also included a 2" wide center brace. That adds quite a bit of strength, I would strongly consider adding that in. Also if you can, beef up the perimeter brace a bit - may to 1.5". 1" is pretty narrow.

Also it wouldn't hurt to use 2" radius corners.

 

[guserto4]

Well since I'm trying to make this as "rimless" as possible 1.5" lip and 2" corners it is!

Thanks!

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

I would still advise the center brace also

 

[Redbellyjx]

Hi There...
What thickness would you use for a 42x22x8-10"?

Does the cost of the extra material for a (1) pieces Eurobrace offset the price of going completely rimless with a thicker material?