diy acrylic tank

8/3/2019 DIY Acrylic Tank

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Making an acrylic tank.

Types of acrylic:

There are 3 types that are of concern to us.ExtrudedContinuous cast

Cell Cast.

All come in clear as well as tinted varieties.Clear Cell Cast acrylic is the type most suitable for aquarium building.

It is also more expensive than the other varieties. You can use extruded for smaller items

like HOB items.

The standard sheet size available with most dealers is 8 x 4. Sometimes you may find a

10 x 5 sheet,

Clear acrylic sheets are of different thickness:

1/8th

inch, , 3/8, and .

The thickness required is determined by the height of the proposed aquarium.

As a general rule tanks up to 12 high can be made with acrylic; up to 18 with 3/8

and up to 24 with . The huge public aquarium windows are made with speciallylaminated sheets up to 4 thickness each.

Length and width do not affect this calculation. Of course practically speaking the

acrylic is more flexible so your cross supports must be spaced closer together and therehave to more of them to prevent bowing in very long aquariums.

Here some pics to demonstrate the basics: If you can pick up a couple of pieces of acrylic

from a dealer to practice on you will be able to perfect the technique before the maintank.

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This is a new piece of acrylic with its backing paper

.

Backing paper being peeled off

The backing paper is there to prevent scratches. It is better to just peel just enough off to

expose the edges for joining. Once you have made the tank you can peel it all off.

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The edges should now be prepared. They may have ridges from cutting or minor fibers

which can easily be removed by drawing the blunt edge of a hacksaw blade over the edge

in one direction a couple of times, and then gently sanding the edge, thus ;

Unprepared edge: prepared edge

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Do not sandpaper so much that the edge becomes rounded -that will give you a weakjoint later. Factory cut edges are the best,. So when you get your acrylic and are marking

out the cuts plan your base in the center so the sides will have one rough edge towards the

inside from where the base was cut, and one good edge towards the outside which wasfactory routered. This factory edge will form the joint with the base.

Like wise for the two sides which will form the width-use the good factory cut sides to siton the base. Of course if you get your acrylic cut at a professional facility you wont need

to worry because all the edges will be superb. (Generally sign board makers have the

equipment to cut large thick acrylic sheets).

Try and get some scrap acrylic and practice the solvent application technique like this:

Place the base piece flat on equally sized wooden planks. The edges to be joined should

not be in contact with any surface otherwise when the solvent melts the acrylic it will

weld it tightly to whatever surface that the acrylic is in contact with and which will nevercome off!

Another view:

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If you are not careful here your whole tank can be marred by a nasty pattern .This was a

solvent spill.

And this a piece of paper got incorporated into the acrylic !

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. Now get some 5 ml syringes. They are the most comfortable to hold.. Needles should be18 G , otherwise they will get clogged. Of course there is nothing better than all glass

syringes of the Glass Van brand, if you can get them any more, that is.

Hypodermic needles are beveled and the beveled edge must be facing away from you and

turned into the joint where you are applying the solvent.

This is the edge:

This is to get direct flow into the joint and will prevent the solvent fro spurting on to

other areas.Once you have taken up the 5 ml of chloroform in your syringe place the needle tip

against the edge at the end further most from you and draw the needle back towards

yourself to end at the edge nearest you while applying gentle steady pressure on theplunger. A thin stream of solvent will be ejected into the joint and you will see it being

immediately sucked into the joint by capillary action. This is called solvent welding. Do

not move the two pieces now, and do not apply more solvent.

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After 4 hours the edges will be solidly welded and will reach full strength in 48 hours. Somy method is to do one side every day.

Sequence of sides:There are many methods and I will describe the one which is the most reliable.

I join up the sides to each other, one by one, till I have a rectangle. I then lower this overthe base making sure that the best prepared or factory cut edges are resting on the base tobe welded.

Step1.

Lay one long side over many small lengths of wood so that the end just juts out over thelast plank and position the side piece over it , like this ;

I made those two jigs to hold the vertical piece in position from the stainless steel backs

of two broken computer chairs and screwing them to 2 large wooden blocks- crude but

effective..Here is a close-up of the same edge:

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Note the joint overhanging the wooden plank. This is to prevent anything sticking to the

joint. Now run solvent down the edge with your syringe;

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Once one side is finished let it rest for a day. Then do the other end:

Step 2Once both end plates are attached to one side you now basically have a long bracket likestructure. Carefully lift this out of the way (use more pairs of hands to prevent flexing)

and put it aside for a moment.

Now lay the other long side down, and invert the assembly previously made over it to

form a rectangle. If the tank is anything more than 2 feet long you will have to usesupport in the middle to prevent sag, like below.

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When you position the supports adjust their height so that the edges in contact with the

lower piece are just lightly resting on it so that you can adjust their orientation and line

with just mild pressure from your index finger. Once the edges are lined up to yoursatisfaction apply solvent to edges at both ends of the rectangle just as you did earlier.

Important: Determine which side of the rectangle is going to sit on the base piece and

before applying solvent make sure there are no irregularities in the edges otherwise a gap

will form at the corners.If you look at the picture below you will see that I have placed a heavy steel angle to

keep that edge in position. This is the side that will join to the base.

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Now the front and back are joined to the sides to give a nice, if somewhat wobblyrectangle.

Step 3

Side braces, Back and Front braces, and Cross Braces

Now you have to attach the braces. If you do it later solvent will drip down and spoil the

sides of you new tank.

(Remember always apply solvent to horizontal edges. Never to vertical edges or the

solvent will run down and will ruin the tanks appearance).

Take two long strips of acrylic 2 wide and 2 shorter ones for the sides. Place them down

and invert the rectangle you have made over them and solvent weld them. Do the sidesfirst and after 4 hours do the front and back. Next day the structure will be quite rigid and

strong and will sit much better on the base.

Put each cross brace in position, clamp it to the longitudinal braces that you gluedearlier,(you can use plastic clothes clips) and lightly run a little solvent at the edges. It

will hold fast in an hour.

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General rule is one cross brace every 2 feet connecting the two long braces.

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Step 4

Final stage;

Lay the base piece on a large smooth surface( floor) over planks like earlier. The planksshould be just shorter than the base so that the edges overlap all around by about 5cm.

Lay the rectangle over the base and go around carefully aligning the edges with yourfingers..

Once it is sitting well you might notice that there is some movement between the base

and the edges. This is because the base flexes a bit. Thicker Acrylic doesnt flex much-

this was a piece. To counteract this and ensure a good contact throughout put paperwedges between the base and the floor in-between the wooden sleepers like this:

Assisted by the friendly local Jihadi.

This is our very co-operative Ambulance driver, Mr Syed Imdadulla Hashmi, fromHyderabad.

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Now you are ready to weld. This time load at least four 5 ml syringes with solvent. Takethe first one, make sure once more that the sides are not overhanging the edge and run the

syringe like you did earlier over all the edges from the inside. As soon as one is over pickup the next syringe Do all the edges in one go. If you missed one or two patches do a

second full round immediately.

Thats it. The tank should not be disturbed by winds, kids or anything else for at least 12

hours. Put some reasonable weight (about 10 kg total) to ensure a gap free join, AFTERyou have applied the solvent.

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Reinforcing the corners.

This is not strictly necessary but I do it anyway. Just lay a triangle of acrylic in eachcorner and solvent weld it into place. Cant see the joint later anyway as it will becovered by the substrate.

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My Head Nurse, Kaleemuddin, also from Hyderabad.

Wait for 48 hours.( I wait a full week). Place the tank on Styrofoam and fill it slowly toone quarter. Let it stand for 2 hours and check for leaks. And so on up to the brim.

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If there are leaks dont worry. Mark the area with a marker pen. Drain and dry the tankand apply a line of thickened solvent along all the edges.

Thickened Solvent.is very simple to make. Take a small glass jar like a Byrlcreambottle, and put a few pieces of scrap acrylic in it and pour in some solvent. Agitate once

in a while. In a few hours this will give you thick acrylic syrup. Remove the piston of asyringe and pour this into the syringe. Fix the piston back and then run this syrup into theleaking area. Or better still the whole of that edge. Prop the tank up at an angle first so

that the leaking edge is at the bottom of a V.

Finally a few points.

Since you will be using 3/8

th

to acrylic to make your tank do not cut the materialyourself. That will be the only part which will not be DIY.

If you need to cut sheets this link will give you the best info:http://badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/acrylic/acrylic1.html

Gopi
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/acrylic/acrylic1.htmlhttp://badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/acrylic/acrylic1.html


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Other than that you will need a packet of 5 ml syringes and 18 gauge needles. Buy the

needles separately because 5 ml syringes usually come prefixed with 22G needles.

One bottle of Choloroform or Methylene chloride.

Some pieces of wood or planks of even thickness and length. Some home made braces to hold your acrylic in place while you are running the

solvent.

A well ventilated, bright room.I hope I was able to cover the topic satisfactorily and I will be happy to answer all

questions

Happy tank making

Gopi

Gopi

diy acrylic tank

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