Acrylic Overflow questions

[aklausing]

I posted this on CORA as well, but thought I'd see if I hit other folks here...

I have a 75G acrylic drilled approximately 4-5" below the water line. In order to increase the skimming effect, hide the bulkheads, etc, I want to build a overflow box aronud the bulkheads.

I was thinking I would take either black or blue acrylic and make a three sided box with slots in top and silicon it to the back of the tank. Actually would build one around each bulkhead.

Couple questions:
1) Where can I buy 3-4 square feet of black or blue acrylic (home depot and lowes only carry clear)?
2) Can I use a simple jigsaw with a "plastic cut" blade to cut the pieces of acrylic?
3) Any advice on how far apart and how deep the slots around the top should be?
4) Advice on what to use to cut in the slots?

 

[jiriki]

American Plastics distributor will have it. Though, I am not sure if they will have cast acrylic readily available.

Jigsaw would make fairly ugly cuts for the teeth. If you want hairline teeth, maybe a bandsaw is better?

If you can do wider teeth, a router bit is the best/cleanest. I'd copy another overflow box in terms of teeth size/width apart.

If you can swing a premade box, you can try www.glass-holes.com. They have prefabricated boxes if your bulkheads exit through the side of the tank instead of the bottom.

 

[jiriki]

I guess being that it is an acrylic tank, you may not want a premade box.. however, if you wanted to do it the easy way, you still could with the box or two from glass-holes.com.

 

[aklausing]

Thanks Jiriki. I'll keep them in mind. I was thinking I could create something myself. But, if all else fails I can fall back to glass-holes.

I did find black acrylic sheets on ebay.

 

[Easily Distracted]

I second the premade route. I have been dabbling with acrylic fabrication for several years with varying results from hugely successful to "I just wasted a bunch of money". I suggest premade unless you really want to dive in to the supplies, equipment and technique of acryllic fabrication.

 

[aklausing]

I already have the holes drilled on upper back corners of the tank (~5 inches from water line and 7 inches from side of tank). My thought was all I needed to do was build a three sided box out of acrylic and use the back and side of tank for the other two sides. There would be two of these boxes, one on each of the back corners.

I also already made a bid for a sheet of acrylic on ebay, that I fully expect to win. The seller said he will give me free cuts, so I'm going to give him the sizes of the six pieces and haev him make the cuts, meaning I don't have to buy a saw blade.

I'm thinking all I need to do is use black aquarium sealer (silicon by All-Glass) to glue the pieces together. I can even run a bead along the inside of the joints, since it won't be visible. It doesn't have to hold water, so pressure shouldn't be an issue in the even the seals are not real strong. I guess one question is whether silicon can be used for acrylic?

Does this sound that difficult?

While I want this to look as nice as possible, I also am using this build as experience doing a lot of DIY. So, I do not expect it to look like it's factory made.

 

[Easily Distracted]

I would think the silicone would hold if you glued it similar to the way aquarium was constructed.

Also, you may want to experiment with a diy strip heater and bend a 90deg for the bottom.

 

[aklausing]

I may try to go the solvent cement route of attaching the pieces together. I found a few posts describing the process and I think I can do it. From what I've found silicon is the brute force method, which can always be my fall back.

I'll post pictures after I complete this portion of the project, provided it looks okay :lol2:

 

[Easily Distracted]

American plastic in/near grandview has weldon 4 and I think 16 in stock as well as offcut pieces by the pound.

 

[electricblue]

Check out www.glass-holes.com. They have kits for exactly what you want to do. I may go ahead and go through them when I get my 75 put together.

 

[aklausing]

I only see complete kits on their web page. My tank is already drilled, so I dont' need to spend the monty on the hole saw. Also, don't really need the bulkheads.

So for my application, it quite a bit of overkill and wasted product and money. Having said that, if screw up my attempt at ubilding my own, I will fall back to glass-holes :lolspin: