stylaster Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 HI Guys I would like to learn how to build an acrylic tank. Does anyone provide lessons on how to do this? I think this would be a good club experience working with acrylic. roy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowpunk Posted March 13, 2009 Share Posted March 13, 2009 Wanareef has some acrylic experience. I don't know about tanks but the few things he has made with it have looked great. I'm about to try out the photobox he made for CA2OR right now... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kriswaters Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 I have built two acrylic sumps...if you have the RIGHT tools for the job...it isn't bad. The main thing is a clean, straight cut so the pieces match up. The next biggy is the glueing or in this case, welding of the pieces. Marc L. from RC has a site that has great detail about building acrylic, here is the link. http://www.melevsreef.com/links.html Good luck! Kris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madmike Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 Yep... the prepwork is 90% of the work involved in getting a good seam. The rest is just practice with how things move when they are essentially melted together using solvent. I recently built a 12"x12"x12" box to house my harelequin shrimp and took the time and spent the money to get the right tools. A tablesaw and a router are almost a must if you want to build anything that looks really good. You can get away with less if you just want it to hold water. The solvents used to weld the material also play a big role in the final look of the seam, some are water thin and dry super fast, others are thick and syrupy and dry real slow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CA2OR Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 not taking anything away from anything posted here....+1 on the wanareef referral. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CA2OR Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 good craftsmanship....you can see his threads for his new tank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stylaster Posted March 14, 2009 Author Share Posted March 14, 2009 cool thank you guys i think ill start simple and make a look down box first Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CA2OR Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 That would probably be very good idea, get you an idea of how hard or easy it is before you embark on a whole tank. Good luck...keep us posted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smann Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 I've made quite a few things around the house, practicing to build a sump and refugium. I built it this summer, I bought my supplies at Tap Plastics and they were very helpful in showing me how to work with acrylics. The Tigard shop took me in back and showed me how to position and glue(weld). it takes some practice, there are different types of weld normal/fast I found the fast works better. same with the arcylic. also found some good info on the web as always:D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CA2OR Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 You can probably also try and tap Isaac at Seahorses brain for this also. He has quite the workshop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krux Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 been wanting to make a melev style camera box, save 80 bucks or whatever they are going for now. I don't have the tools, but if there is someone who does, i would be game to pay for the materials for them if you want to get together and figure out how to bust a couple out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acrylics Posted March 14, 2009 Share Posted March 14, 2009 been wanting to make a melev style camera box' date=' save 80 bucks or whatever they are going for now. I don't have the tools, but if there is someone who does, i would be game to pay for the materials for them if you want to get together and figure out how to bust a couple out.[/quote'] Throw a pic up of what you referring to and let's see what we can do James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stylaster Posted March 14, 2009 Author Share Posted March 14, 2009 that would be cool thats what i was thinking of for the look down box to get good top down shots Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wanareef Posted March 15, 2009 Share Posted March 15, 2009 James they look like this. I made one for Eric/CA2OR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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