Acrylic fabrication questions? I can help!

This was the post I was thinking of, it shows doing a 45 joint

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=23755047#post23755047

@H20ENG what he is wanting to do is a butt-joint and I believe 45s are correct for that joint, or rather, one 45 and the other a few degrees off of 45 so that a gap is created that can be filled. If is were a corner joint you would only bevel one edge.

@skeeter_ca for a 16' long panel, I'm not sure that 1/2" is thick enough.
 
What i have seen for extra long tanks (10ft) was ro join them llike this // . at 45 degrees provide larger surface area for weldon 40/42. This is how atm does it.
 
Ah yes, Calvin's nano, what an awesome tank!

He does do one thing that is worth mentioning if you catch it in that thread, he welds the 2 piece together (for all 4 panes, top bottom & sides) and THEN he cuts them, the factor here being that when you weld 2 piece together like that, unless you are an absolute master craftsman, chances are those 2 piece are not going to line up dead-on straight, so you have to rip the pieces against a fence afterwards to get rid of the "V" that bonding the 2 pieces together will inevitably create. It looks like he just used a table saw and a short fence but the sure-fire way to go would be to use a full-length fence and a router. But that makes for one really really long fence. Another way to do it would be a panel saw with a base extension so that the piece rode along a flat plane for the whole rip (lead in and lead out) but that might be splitting hairs. Multiple passes would eventually remove any angular difference.

That build thread also shows the euro cutting technique I described, almost exactly! He makes a template with particle board and that works also.
 
Actually his idea was pretty good, just use blue tape to make the channel then pour in the WO40 (he uses a 42 gun, don't need to do that though)

You do need to leave a gap though, either by bevelling one edge more than the other, or I've also heard of using a thin shim to force a gap, but I think just leaving a gap manually (eyeballing it) should be sufficient, the only problem I saw with his technique is that when you push the pieces together, the tape bows and the solvent would ooze out into the void below. Maybe he had a piece of wood under the gap to minimize this? Or like I said, bevel one edge more so you had a triangular void and tape the back side, then you don't need to push them together after pouring the WO in the gap.

Using a long straight fence along one side (or both) to make sure the pieces were lined up perfectly straight might allow one to have the other bonding edges prepped and ready, so that you could avoid needing to do the full-length edge rip afterwards.

Just thinking out loud. Haven't ever done a process like this but it looks like an interesting process
 
Can anyone help me out?

Can someone tell me the best way to go about putting this together? as in, what order to glue panels?

heres a high res picture of how i have it laid out.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/70013956/2015-11-19%2019.19.19.jpg

my bottom piece was slightly smaller than i expected because i left it at home when i cut the AIO pieces, so i'll just router off the access after.

do i glue the walls all together first, then glue it as a whole to the base? or do one panel onto the base at a time?

also where the AIO meets the tank, can i T up the panels and glue them all together? or would i be better off just going right off the back edge how i have it roughed up in the pics?

thanks in advance guys, i'm just playing around cuz i got this half inch stuff free. so its not pretty lol
 
AIO?

T up?

Order in general is sides to front, then that assembly to back, then all that to the bottom

What are the short pieces off the right/back that look butted up against the front/back panels? Confused a bit about what exactly you are trying to build
 
Floyd R Turbo said:
AIO?

T up?

Order in general is sides to front, then that assembly to back, then all that to the bottom

What are the short pieces off the right/back that look butted up against the front/back panels? Confused a bit about what exactly you are trying to build
Click to expand...

I want those back 3 pieces to just be an added " all in one " style sump area, if you know what i mean. i wasn't sure how to go about adding it, my original pieces were only 16x16 so in order to do that, i have to add on that small chamber somehow like i have it laid out, i wasnt able to make all long side pieces due to what plastic i was provided, like i said it was free so i wasnt going to complain. If i cant make that added area in the back work some how, i'll just leave it off and drill some half inch bulkheads or something.

obviously, i need some baffles and whatnot for back there i'd do with 1/4" acrylic i just didn't feel like wasting my time if there wasn't a way to make it work

i was hoping I could just butt them all together somehow to make it work somehow similar to what i have laid out.

I've never done this so I'm more than willing to hear ideas from you guys since you know how it all works.

hopefully that made some sense and you know what I'm looking to do.

the 2 wings shooting off the back are just excess material, and i'll route off whatever i cant fit onto the base plate piece.
 
2015-11-19%2019.19.19.jpg


Just remove the two "extensions" and slide the 2 baffle in. You're not going to be able to make butt joints work very easily, esp if you've never done acrylic bonding or tank building. I'm assuming that is the case? Correct me if I'm wrong. Because it's not impossible, it's just another step that needs to be done
 
yeah, thats why i only linked in and didnt img flag it LOL thats a full 16 MP picture from my phone.

sorry.

I ended up just doing the square tank 16x16 roughly, maybe i'll just run it with a baby sump or something no biggy.

my edges were pretty rough yet i dont have access to a router fulltime, so my seams arnt perfect, few bubbles here and there. but its only 7" tall so i'd imagine it wont be too big of a deal as long as it doesnt leak right?
 
Absolutely, Meguiar's is what I use after rounding and wet sanding

I use a high speed polisher (like a car buffer) with the foam pad www.meguiarsdirect.com/product/soft-buff-da-foam-cutting-disc-6. Ultra cut http://www.meguiarsdirect.com/product/ultra-cut-compound-32oz is stage 1, then I use a second pad and Meguiar's swirl free polish http://www.meguiarsdirect.com/product/bsp-swirl-free-polish

run polisher at low-medium speed for ultra cut, a little faster for the swirl free polish.

Heat is the enemy so keep it moving. For less important polishing, i find that just using a black & decker $30 buffer works well http://www.lowes.com/pd_240939-79992-WP900_1z12l6gZ1z0wcl3__?productId=1207867&pl=1 as log as you take out all of the sanding scratches right
 
The 3 stitch wheel is the one you want also. I've buffed out an entire tank with a 3 stitch wheel. That was before I figured out the right way to do it though.
 
Thanks for the advice. I'm mainly polishing 1/4" edges for float switch holders, skimmer stands, etc. Small stuff. So I think a full size orbital buffer would be too clumsy. I'm wondering if I could use a 3 stitch wheel on a drill with just Ultra Cut? I'd be polishing router edges, not rough cut.
 
Floyd R Turbo said:
how bad is it leaking?

What you can probably do is what I suggested. In addition to that, let the joint dry out thoroughly (put a fan on it, blow out the joints with compressed air, etc) then run the water-thin weld-on across all the joints and see where it wicks in. Let that dry for a few hours, then run a bead of weld-on #16 around the entire bottom joint, let that dry for 30 minutes, then tip it up on end and do 2 vertical seams, 30m, then the other 2 opposite end seams, 30m, then run repeat the whole process at least 1 more time. #16 isn't a gap filler, and it dries to a thin profile, but it's thick enough that a couple of built-up coats will seal up bad/leaky joints in an application such as this.

I've seen frag tanks at shows (MACNA in DSM/2011) that made me shiver - rough saw cuts bonded together with capillary action and then sealed with WO16 that looked like a disaster waiting to happen...but they held for at least the 3 day show, which completely stunned me. That being said, don't so that.
Click to expand...


I've finally gotten to this project - thank goodness for long weekends.

Here's what it looks like

<a href="http://s1062.photobucket.com/user/karimwassef/media/88E63E75-4D53-467C-BB70-93E6ABA4DFF6_zpsjblbja7y.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t496/karimwassef/88E63E75-4D53-467C-BB70-93E6ABA4DFF6_zpsjblbja7y.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 88E63E75-4D53-467C-BB70-93E6ABA4DFF6_zpsjblbja7y.jpg"/></a>

You can see the dark edges along the long sides.

Here's a closer look

<a href="http://s1062.photobucket.com/user/karimwassef/media/67C352B2-1F7B-45FA-962F-43E97DF26E4A_zpsftpdhz9w.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t496/karimwassef/67C352B2-1F7B-45FA-962F-43E97DF26E4A_zpsftpdhz9w.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 67C352B2-1F7B-45FA-962F-43E97DF26E4A_zpsftpdhz9w.jpg"/></a>

closer...

<a href="http://s1062.photobucket.com/user/karimwassef/media/31C6D3FA-475B-4525-9720-D8FF19064E84_zpsnaablbpp.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t496/karimwassef/31C6D3FA-475B-4525-9720-D8FF19064E84_zpsnaablbpp.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 31C6D3FA-475B-4525-9720-D8FF19064E84_zpsnaablbpp.jpg"/></a>

Some areas had fouling from salt water creep inside the crack...

<a href="http://s1062.photobucket.com/user/karimwassef/media/E864B569-1691-43B5-8E54-A4AD829269A4_zpsujmwew19.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t496/karimwassef/E864B569-1691-43B5-8E54-A4AD829269A4_zpsujmwew19.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo E864B569-1691-43B5-8E54-A4AD829269A4_zpsujmwew19.jpg"/></a>
 
so. what caused the bond to fail? What's the easiest way to make it watertight. This will not be under pressure, just needs to keep water from getting into the light fixture that's partially submerged.
 
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