Fish Story Aquarium and Rescue, Naples, FL; two 4500 gal 13'x13'x4.5'

[wednesday13]

Thank you my friend. What luck and privilege to be able to draw on your experience! Mess and bubbles, huh? No matter how I go about it, it'll be mess and bubbles, rest assured...

God willing, will have my first go at it today. Will show you my work. It'll be an eclectic mix of...

Plastic mess and lots of bubbles,
Plenty giggles, stress, and troubles...

Haha youll b fine...Wish u luck my friend... best way to learn is to dive right in... i learn well from my own mistakes... makes u remember for the next time lol... Ull get ur own little system down for mixing/pot life/clean up or lack there of and hone ur skills in by the time u get to working on the "pretty parts" of the build i.e. the inside and seaming those sheets together.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

wednesday13

Well, what I've produced is an acrylic model of the Milky Way. You were right in your eyeballing the amount of the Weld On 40 needed to get this done to some sort of standard of view-ability. It appears when I strive for ~perfect clarity and do a pour-and-squeeze, I squeeze out 2/3 or 3/4 of the glue. Maybe I am squeezing too hard (I set concrete blocks on the top sheet). IDK. Anyhow, this technique would up the glue consumption by 3-4 times pushing the glue cost to $1500-$2000 before shipping.

So went to brush on and then squeeze because it uses less glue... because with less glue and the pour-and-squeeze it gets ~ impossible for me to get the glue everywhere it needs to go. One option is to thin the glue as recommended.

-- Do you thin or not?

This of course leads to bubbles but I guess my standards are way low because it may be acceptable to me at this point.

I need to remove the excess hardened glue and sharp edges.

-- I wanted to ask you how you'd go about it?
-- What tools would you use?
-- What grits of sandpaper would you use from the largest to the smallest and in what steps?

Here are some pictures of where we stand today. Remember that while the total height of this post (made of seven acrylic sheets of different length, width and thickness) is 7', the visible, above-ground part is the top 40 inches, so I used a minimum of the glue for the bottom part that will go into concrete. The ruler lying across indicates the 40".

I'm thinking that maybe I will want to smooth the edges of all/most acrylic layers to a continuous smooth "bevel". But this will take way a bit of rigidity (which I am far from sure will be sufficient to hold back ~2.5'-3' of water). So, IDK yet.

So far I've used ~2/3 of one gallon jug. I bought 4 one gallon jugs to glue 4 posts like this together but can buy some more if needed.

 

[wednesday13]

Honestly i think u did a pretty good job for ur 1st attempts...sadly theres no way around wasting alot of glue to get a perfect laminate. For looks it aint all that shabby for a post. Ive never thinned the glue down before but that may be a good idea to make it go a little further. Cleaning up the sides of the sheets is easy with a router and trim/clean up bit with the bearing/guide on it. It leaves the surface almost perfect. Sanding is necessary afterwards of course but anything you can do with a router to remove the bulk of the glue is very beneficial as sanding the hardened #40 is not an easy task. Beveling the edges is also fairly easy. Reg router bits for woodworking work pretty well... ive hogged out 3/4" bevels for rounded edges in 1" material and had very minimial chipping (nothing that couldnt be sanded out by hand). 1/4-1/2" bevels come out very clean with minimial sanding needed afterwards. As for sanding, orbital sanders are the best. palm sanders leave scratches...and hand sanding works but gets old quick. For types of paper i use anything from a hardware store dry and wet 80 grit to 2k grit. Then u can use mcguires plastic/car polish or novus to clean/shine/buff the acrylic to clear. No rhyme or reason to sanding other than going through all the grits one by one until its clear. if u dont have to use anything lower than 200 try not too as its hard to remove the sanding scratches.... I dont think rounding/beveling all the edges will lower the integrity of material, dont need to take off more than 1/4"-1/2" in/off the edges to make em smooth. Be confident in using a router. i was skeptical at first but acrylic is rather soft once u start zippin it with router/flute type bits. ill put up some pics of bits similiar to what i use... nothing fancy either. i bought a ryobi multi bit set for $30 or so.

 

[wednesday13]

flush trim bits above

round corner bits below for smooth edges

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Thank you, wednesday13 .

I assume you use a drill (or a rotozip?) with these bits, right? I don't own a table saw, nor could I lift and turn this post, which weighs about 200-250 lbs and is of very awkward shape to handle.

I see there is a power tool called router, is this what you have in mind? In all my hack jobs I've never had to use a router... as you can tell.

 

[wednesday13]

Thank you, wednesday13 .

I assume you use a drill (or a rotozip?) with these bits, right? I don't own a table saw, nor could I lift and turn this post, which weighs about 200-250 lbs and is of very awkward shape to handle.

I see there is a power tool called router, is this what you have in mind? In all my hack jobs I've never had to use a router... as you can tell.

Yeah...these are router bits...for a router tool.. i have a ridgid brand...hand held... maybe set ya back $30-50. well worth it for all the sanding it will save u. I too just got my feet wet with routing acrylic not too long ago. its just like wood tho for the most part. seems hard but once u make a few passes ull be confident. I made a frag type tank in 1" acrylic to practice sanding/buffing/routing. came out better than expected. time consuming... but looks good all fancy with rounded edges/corners. will be the perfect tool to de sharpen all those edges for ya.

 

[wednesday13]

Maybe mine was a bit more than $50 lol... theres cheaper options in that price range tho. u dont need a big one

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Thanks again! I will look into the routers then. I do all my edging mostly with a circular saw, rarely with a saws-all saw. Maybe this is the time to grow up. Haha.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Our four Cephalosilurus apurensis had a mighty good meal yesterday worth filming.

I had bought three from very different vendors and times hoping to maybe score a nigricaudus but alas they are all apurensis. It looks like we (almost) never get nigricaudus in the trade because it only inhabits coastal Suriname and there appears to be no or not much export from there.

The fourth one is a donation by a local MFK-er. It was advertised as fowleri - another Cephalosilurus we (almost) never get in the trade. We had doubts and sure enough it had grown into another apurensis.

They are about 12"-14" currently. 99% the gathering is peaceful, rarely do they decide to re-establish / re-enforce the hierarchy. But they always lay in one pile vast majority of the time despite plenty of space and furniture, which is kind of cute to see after all the bickering and crankiness...

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Got an African lungfish from John Gerber in Dayton, Ohio this March. Loves catfish pellets. I offer cut or whole fish but it mostly refuses. It's pretty laid back. Duh.