Acrylic fabrication questions? I can help!

I am looking at building two water storage tanks at 17x20x16 and need them to be able to be stacked straight on top of each other. What is the minimum thickness you would use?
 
Me personally I would use 3/8th material....any time I build something that is gonna have water in it I use 3/8th min. Even overflows etc.....besides its easier to work with...;)
 
I have seen a lot of brand name acrylic tanks are similar in size and thickness. They also bow much more than I would be comfortable or happy with. I would imagine that as long as the seams are well formed, then the tank will be safe.

also... thanks for your service.
 
thanks i have been out for a few years and have always been proud that i did serve our country. cause no matter how screwed up the U.S.A is right now id rather be here then anywhere else. I think I'm am going to go ahead and add some live rock and finish filling the tank up. Hope this doesn't prove to to be a huge mess.:fun2:
 
If you have a local club, you can check with some of the other members and compare the deflection of the various panels to see how yours stacks up.
 
where do you go to find your gallery now?

Acrylics said:
If possible, I would highly recommend getting someone with experience to show you a little bit. Routers are very efficient at remove flesh from humans so IMO getting some hands-on training, even if informal, will be beneficial. Whether left-to-right or right-to-left depends on what you are doing IME, there are times when it's very beneficial to do things one way over the other :)

As a standard though, I stand feeding the work forward with the router on the right side of the work. But many people have different ways and can achieve good results with whatever way they're most comfortable.

Look in my gallery, should be some pics in there showing one of my router set-ups.

As for gluing, I always glue from the outside, that solvent bottle never sees the inside of a display tank - one drop inside a display area and I'm starting over. Gluing baffles into a sump is different, not nearly as critical and you have no choice but to glue from the inside :)

HTH,
James
Click to expand...
 
I need some acrylic help please.

I just got a ton of acrylic from a school and was starting to build some projects with it. I do have prior experience building with acrylic so I'm stumped as to what is happening now. Any time I glue up the pieces now I come back a few hours later only to find a ton of air sucked back in the seam making it look like it wasn't a good bond. I route all my pieces so that they are flat and easy to work with and I make sure there are no gaps when I finally set the piece in place. Could it be the acrylic maybe??? I'm not 100% sure about what type of acrylic I have since it was free. It has white paper on one side and brown on the other.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks
 
it could be cheap material....the only time i really see one side white and one side brown paper is the frosted or textured material....they might have peeled one side and then masked it back off with transfer tape it is a white paper that i use all the time for masking...
i would say let your joint soak for like 20 seconds longer before pulling the pins and see if it still does that...if the joint didnt soak long enough and you pull the pins you don't get the little damn of material around the seam to keep the air out...
 
troylee said:
it could be cheap material....the only time i really see one side white and one side brown paper is the frosted or textured material....they might have peeled one side and then masked it back off with transfer tape it is a white paper that i use all the time for masking...
i would say let your joint soak for like 20 seconds longer before pulling the pins and see if it still does that...if the joint didnt soak long enough and you pull the pins you don't get the little damn of material around the seam to keep the air out...
Click to expand...

Ok, well I will try what you said today.

I also wanted to know if there is any way to take the old paper off since it is very old and has dried out. Its a pain the butt trying to peel it off sometimes. I usually soak a rag with alcohol and that helps ease up the old glue but it is a lot of work. I was hoping there might be an easier way.

Thanks a lot for the reply.
 
DANG IT!!!!
Ok, so I went over to check my seam and accidentally bumped the piece I had glued up. The side piece came off with no problem and the other piece looks as though the solvent didn't even penetrate it at all.

Could I possibly have some sort of cross-linked acrylic?? whatever that is?? It is the one thing on the product spec sheet that the solvent doesn't bond.
 
Mike,
Heating the sheet with a heat gun usually works the best for me. Old acrylic paper is a nightmare. If you heat a corner then get it started, fan the heat gun along the crease of the paper as you peel it. Just have to get a feel for it and not too hot.
 
It turns out that the material I have is Noxtat. I believe it is cross linked acrylic and so I'm not sure what solvent to use to glue this stuff together.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by chriscobb View Post
Hey Henry....you can try Grim's plastic....they are in Harrisburg and easy to deal with.....TotalPlastics has a shop here as well, but they put a min purchase amount to deal with them....And there is a another good place down around Downingtown PA that has really good prices and they carry Polycast and Spartech....

Any idea what the name of the place in Downingtown is?
 
My sump split at a vertical seam..Its 3/8--48x24x18 can I use WO#4 to put it back together or is there a better way/product? Also do I clamp it or just weighted pressure?
Thanks
 
bobafet1 said:
It turns out that the material I have is Noxtat. I believe it is cross linked acrylic and so I'm not sure what solvent to use to glue this stuff together.
Click to expand...
IIRC Noxtat is a static dissipative hard-coat. The coating needs to be removed if you are going to glue to it. Other than that - cannot be glued.

Seanile said:
My sump split at a vertical seam..Its 3/8--48x24x18 can I use WO#4 to put it back together or is there a better way/product? Also do I clamp it or just weighted pressure?
Thanks
Click to expand...
I'd use #4 or similar. You should not need much in the way of clamps, maybe just a little weight. I am concerned that a joint split though, never a good sign. Is this a home built sump? got any pics?

James
 
Help needed with Acrylic Tank

Help needed with Acrylic Tank

I just picked up a used but never setup 600 gal acrylic and someone has painted the back black anyone know of anything that will remove paint from acrylic Thanks for any input:confused:
 
Acrylics,

So is the coat a light film on my piece of acrylic?? would a light sanding remove it?

Thanks for the info.
 
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