00nothing
New member
Some people were interested with the towers i have built for my tank and asked me to document it and since a friend of mine was wanting me to build him one out of my leftever rock here is a quick pictured DIY tutorial
1. Tools Needed
First thing u are going to need will be the drill bit and drill, I used a regular masonry bit that was rated for stone only because it was the cheapest and i didnt want to spend a lot of money for a project that I wasnt sure would work. I reccomend at least a good powered corded drill for doing this some people reccomend a hammer drill to make the job even easier ( For the pics i was using a 12v firestorm cordless not ideal for doing this job). For the support rod i used 3/4 pvc piping it was cheap and easy to get some people use acrylic rod which in my area would have been slightly tougher to find and undoubtedly more expensive, I say use whatever u feel comfortable with
*note: 3/4 masonry bit is smaller than the outside diameter of 3/4 pvc so some reaming of every hole i drilled was required this was quite simple by jsut twisting the bit around in the hole
2. Selecting the rock
(I kinda jumped the gun and started drilling before i remembered i was supposed to document it) Try to find pieces that appear like they might fit together is some way i.e... (this crack lines up with that ridge, that sort of thing). Once you have your pieces picked out try to dry fit them together to get a general idea of what the completed pile should look like, you may need a second set of hands for this step.
3. Drilling and Assembly
When drilling start with your base piece (you are best to choose a heavy flat bottomed piece as this will dictate the stability of the whole structure) making sure you have it sitting on a flat surface start drilling u will find that the first part of the rock will be a little tough to get through but jsut let the drill do the work go slowly once u crack through the surface it gets a lot easier (at least with my rock it did), have a piece of your support rod handy and make sure it is cut to jsut slightly longer than the height of your finshed stack you can trim it back later. As you are drilling keep checking the angles and depth of your hole using the support rod.
Once you have the base done continue on to your next pieces fitting them one at a time getting an idea of how you want it to look but at the same time performing the most important step in this whole thing, balancing the rock so that the end structure does not become unstable. by extending one rock this way and another rock that way it is very easily achieved
Once you get to the end you will have some pvc left sticking out at this point u can either cut it back so that it is slightly shorter thanthe structure or you can creat a cap piece (For this project i decided to use a cap)
Now just take it all apart paying close attention to how you had it put together give it a rinse to remove all the excess dust and mud (note this project will cause your tank to go cloudy when u put it back in but the cloudiness only lasted a few hrs in my tank) Now reassemble in the tank and voila u have yourself a beautiful rock feature that will ahve people guessing what kind of glue you used to stick it together
For more pics feel free to visit my photobucket page
http://photobucket.com/albums/0603/00nothing/rock drilling/?sc=5
1. Tools Needed
First thing u are going to need will be the drill bit and drill, I used a regular masonry bit that was rated for stone only because it was the cheapest and i didnt want to spend a lot of money for a project that I wasnt sure would work. I reccomend at least a good powered corded drill for doing this some people reccomend a hammer drill to make the job even easier ( For the pics i was using a 12v firestorm cordless not ideal for doing this job). For the support rod i used 3/4 pvc piping it was cheap and easy to get some people use acrylic rod which in my area would have been slightly tougher to find and undoubtedly more expensive, I say use whatever u feel comfortable with
*note: 3/4 masonry bit is smaller than the outside diameter of 3/4 pvc so some reaming of every hole i drilled was required this was quite simple by jsut twisting the bit around in the hole
2. Selecting the rock
(I kinda jumped the gun and started drilling before i remembered i was supposed to document it) Try to find pieces that appear like they might fit together is some way i.e... (this crack lines up with that ridge, that sort of thing). Once you have your pieces picked out try to dry fit them together to get a general idea of what the completed pile should look like, you may need a second set of hands for this step.
3. Drilling and Assembly
When drilling start with your base piece (you are best to choose a heavy flat bottomed piece as this will dictate the stability of the whole structure) making sure you have it sitting on a flat surface start drilling u will find that the first part of the rock will be a little tough to get through but jsut let the drill do the work go slowly once u crack through the surface it gets a lot easier (at least with my rock it did), have a piece of your support rod handy and make sure it is cut to jsut slightly longer than the height of your finshed stack you can trim it back later. As you are drilling keep checking the angles and depth of your hole using the support rod.
Once you have the base done continue on to your next pieces fitting them one at a time getting an idea of how you want it to look but at the same time performing the most important step in this whole thing, balancing the rock so that the end structure does not become unstable. by extending one rock this way and another rock that way it is very easily achieved
Once you get to the end you will have some pvc left sticking out at this point u can either cut it back so that it is slightly shorter thanthe structure or you can creat a cap piece (For this project i decided to use a cap)
Now just take it all apart paying close attention to how you had it put together give it a rinse to remove all the excess dust and mud (note this project will cause your tank to go cloudy when u put it back in but the cloudiness only lasted a few hrs in my tank) Now reassemble in the tank and voila u have yourself a beautiful rock feature that will ahve people guessing what kind of glue you used to stick it together
For more pics feel free to visit my photobucket page
http://photobucket.com/albums/0603/00nothing/rock drilling/?sc=5
