Gimplar
New member
Ok everyone, I finally finished my canopy. but before I talk about the processes and steps....
THANK YOU NAH20FOOL!!! Without mike's help, this canopy wouldn't of turned out nearly as nice as it did. I want to say thank you for the time that you sacrificed to help me with this canopy, and i would like to dedicate this paragraph for the courtesy and kindness that you and your family has shown me. A million thanks can not show how appreciative i am of your help.
Also i would like to thank Pmike for the original canopy and the delivery services
Thanks mike!
Ok, I have a 6 ft, 125 Gallon tank and the problems i cant facing was over heating due ot my Metal halides and VHO configurations being too close to the water level. Prior to this reconstruction, my temp was running at 86 degrees + if the halides were left on for more then 5 hours. So what i wanted to do was get a taller canopy with an open back inorder to circulate and have enough height to drastically reduce the temperature to a normal degree. What i ended up doing was getting a old used canopy and adding on wood inorder to make it taller.
First, i got a new canopy from Pmike which needed heavy modifications in order to do what i wanted it to do. Here are a few pics (they're pmike's pics) of the canopy prior to construction
.
Ok, well this canopy had a few characteristics that made it difficult to configure into the size i wanted. The first thing was that the edges had routing and borders that made it very difficult to match because the routing was quite customized and the size and shape was a pain to find a perfect match.
With NaH20fool's help, we decided to do the following steps to make the canopy
1. Pry off the borders and re-route new borders and trim to make it more eye appealing.
2. Remove the lip on the inside of the canopy (the piece that physically sits on the tank) and save them for later placement.
3. Get some wood that is the same thickness and width (for the desired length). If you're cutting it, make sure you measure twice and cut once
. add it on to the canopy. This is a difficult and crucial task because the added piece of wood has to line up flawlessly. This was acomplished by adding in wood bisquits between the canopy and the new wood. This assures the wood stayed in place and added strength. clamp the new wood and the canopy together after adding the bisquits, glueing them with wood glue, and glueing the actually wood panels together. Do this process for the front and side panels.
3. After the new wood and canopy were clamped and dried and the routered pieces (or whatever attachments you're adding) are finished, Begin sanding the added front and side panels, (we used a circular sander) and smooth the newly added and the canopy so both pieces are flush.
4. After everything is smooth, Add in support braces to ensure that the new pieces are heavily supported and will not snap off with force. Here are some pics to demonstrate. All pieces that are not the red burgandy colors was added by NaH20fool and I.
THANK YOU NAH20FOOL!!! Without mike's help, this canopy wouldn't of turned out nearly as nice as it did. I want to say thank you for the time that you sacrificed to help me with this canopy, and i would like to dedicate this paragraph for the courtesy and kindness that you and your family has shown me. A million thanks can not show how appreciative i am of your help.
Also i would like to thank Pmike for the original canopy and the delivery services
Thanks mike!Ok, I have a 6 ft, 125 Gallon tank and the problems i cant facing was over heating due ot my Metal halides and VHO configurations being too close to the water level. Prior to this reconstruction, my temp was running at 86 degrees + if the halides were left on for more then 5 hours. So what i wanted to do was get a taller canopy with an open back inorder to circulate and have enough height to drastically reduce the temperature to a normal degree. What i ended up doing was getting a old used canopy and adding on wood inorder to make it taller.
First, i got a new canopy from Pmike which needed heavy modifications in order to do what i wanted it to do. Here are a few pics (they're pmike's pics) of the canopy prior to construction
.
Ok, well this canopy had a few characteristics that made it difficult to configure into the size i wanted. The first thing was that the edges had routing and borders that made it very difficult to match because the routing was quite customized and the size and shape was a pain to find a perfect match.
With NaH20fool's help, we decided to do the following steps to make the canopy
1. Pry off the borders and re-route new borders and trim to make it more eye appealing.
2. Remove the lip on the inside of the canopy (the piece that physically sits on the tank) and save them for later placement.
3. Get some wood that is the same thickness and width (for the desired length). If you're cutting it, make sure you measure twice and cut once
. add it on to the canopy. This is a difficult and crucial task because the added piece of wood has to line up flawlessly. This was acomplished by adding in wood bisquits between the canopy and the new wood. This assures the wood stayed in place and added strength. clamp the new wood and the canopy together after adding the bisquits, glueing them with wood glue, and glueing the actually wood panels together. Do this process for the front and side panels.3. After the new wood and canopy were clamped and dried and the routered pieces (or whatever attachments you're adding) are finished, Begin sanding the added front and side panels, (we used a circular sander) and smooth the newly added and the canopy so both pieces are flush.
4. After everything is smooth, Add in support braces to ensure that the new pieces are heavily supported and will not snap off with force. Here are some pics to demonstrate. All pieces that are not the red burgandy colors was added by NaH20fool and I.
