Chrash236 Posted September 3, 2003 Share Posted September 3, 2003 Hey if you want to try a new glue try Pro Bond from HD it 7 dollars and the best glue on the market. Link to comment
foo Posted September 4, 2003 Share Posted September 4, 2003 Originally posted by MattGecko:everyone paints the inside of there canopy white, I have some extra chrome spray paint Why not? Just as long as it's water resistant and it's not too near the MH bulb. I would be concerned that any paint too near the bulb will crack or bubble because of the heat.I think you said that you were going to dispense with the fixture and mount the bulb directly on the inside of the hood right? Have you considered using sheet metal or some reflector material? Not much progress on my project. I started on the refugium. I bought a sheet of acrylic sheet from Home Depot and cut out and drilled all of the parts I need. I just need to bond the acrylic and get a couple half inch bulkheads. Time to order some junk from Dr. Fosters or Marine Depot. I'll try to glue it up and drill the hood to mate it with the refugium bulkheads this weekend. The attached pic shows roughly what it'll be but I'm deleting the third long baffle from the design and moving the second one to out a little to give me more room in the refugium. It's 3" deep but the material is 1/4" stock so it'll add another 3 and 1/2" behind the tank. Link to comment
MattGecko Posted September 4, 2003 Author Share Posted September 4, 2003 Man you beat me to my next project. I have to build a sump/fuge to house my Iceprobe & heater (14"W x 5"D x 12"T). Did you use the table saw to cut the plexi? What kind glue did you use? I'm jealous, it looks great!!! Tell me more about the sheet metal reflectors? I was going to buy 3 new reflectors. A 13W for the MH & two single 32W reflectors. One to go over the tank (Aquatic bulb) & the one to go over the sump (10k or 50/50 bulb). Link to comment
MattGecko Posted September 4, 2003 Author Share Posted September 4, 2003 Originally posted by Chrash236 Hey if you want to try a new glue try Pro Bond from HD it 7 dollars and the best glue on the market. What kind of material does it work on? wood, plexi, etc...... Link to comment
Gilman Posted September 4, 2003 Share Posted September 4, 2003 Did I mention I want one of those hoods? Would anyone consider building one for a mechanically declined guy and if so, what do you think it would run? Waiting hopefully, Mechanically Declined Guy Link to comment
foo Posted September 4, 2003 Share Posted September 4, 2003 Originally Posted by MattGecko:...Did you use the table saw to cut the plexi? What kind glue did you use?... Yes I used my table saw with a small tooth blade installed to cut the acrylic. I bought a 36"x30" 1/4" sheet of clear acrylic for $25 from Home Depot and cut it using the table saw. The ouside dimensions of my refugium is 16 3/4" x 15 1/2" x 3 1/2" so that it will come to the top of my hood and take up the full width behind the tank. I'm shelving my DIY chiller project for now and I'm thinking I'm going to just by an iceprobe. I drilled a 1 1/4" hole for it you can see it in the lower left hand corner of the picture, where the black thing is. I haven't bonded the acrylic yet but I'm going to use acrylic cement, the stuff the aquarium manufacturers use. Check out this PDF: "Plastic Sheets, Care and Cementing" Or go to their store Matt. There is one on Blossom Hill Road and another on The Alameda in San Jose and another on Castro Street in Mountain View and in Cupertino. They have more information about cutting forming and other plastic info online and at their store. I went there Saturday and their 3/16" clear sheet acrylic is $5 a square foot and their 3/16" smoked color is $7 a square foot. I thought I could do better at Home Depot so I went there. Home Depot is cheaper but they only carried 1/4" stock so I had to buy that. My original idea had the thing being made of smoked acrylic and would have had the left, bottom and right sides made from a single sheet of acrylic with two bends in it for the corners but the sheet material I bought wasn't long enough. But bending acrylic is tricky and gets more difficult as the material gets thicker so maybe just as well. But TAP plastics will do custom order work for you if you ask them. You can give them your design and they can fabricate the whole thing for you. They charge alot for labor I think though. Visit their store. I could have done that but I wanted to see if I was up to the challenge! Gilman - Sorry. I have little enough time as it is to work on my own project. I still have a full time job. Maybe if they have a RIF and let me go I'd consider. I think I saw that Espi dude advertise that he thinks he can build those now maybe you want to try asking him. I wonder if he read this thread. Link to comment
foo Posted September 4, 2003 Share Posted September 4, 2003 Originally Posted by MattGecko:Tell me more about the sheet metal reflectors? I was going to buy 3 new reflectors.... I commented about the paint you were using and suggested a reflector only because I think the painting the inside the hood may not be very necessary or maybe only the sides of the hood on the inside need be painted a light color if you can get the reflector in the right shape behind your lights. I just didn't know if you had considered that. Sounds like you have already thought of that. I bought a large reflector from HelloLights and cut it up and bent and formed it to my liking to make a spider lite like reflector. And took some sheet metal flashing from Home Depot and made a boxy pendant to house it. I still need to install a tempered glass shield in it. I plan to take some of the left over reflector material and bend it for the 13W lamp I'm going to put over the refugium. Here's a picture of the pendant where it cracked the shield when it had normal glass in it. Link to comment
MattGecko Posted September 4, 2003 Author Share Posted September 4, 2003 Gil, I don't think I'll have time to make another hood either. As it takes me 6 month to complete anything. X) Foo, Sweet looking HQI!!!! Link to comment
MattGecko Posted September 8, 2003 Author Share Posted September 8, 2003 Thanks to Mike's (Foo) help, my sump/fuge is taking shape. I'm going to glue it together tonight. Conopy is just about done. Now I have to find a place to cut some glass. The inside of the canopy I used chrome bumper paint (I will be using a reflector also). Picture was taken without the flash. Link to comment
Chrash236 Posted September 8, 2003 Share Posted September 8, 2003 MattGecko The glue will hold wood only, but it is the strongest glue out there. It fuses the two woods together and you can't break them apart at all. Sorry this is a little late I was out of town for the weekend Link to comment
Gilman Posted September 8, 2003 Share Posted September 8, 2003 Matt, I understand man. Great job. Congrats. Gil Link to comment
eddie29 Posted September 9, 2003 Share Posted September 9, 2003 Matt, Just wondering why you decided to paint the canopy and stand black? Cause you spent all that time and effort in using a hardwood only to paint it black. I figured you'd wanna stain it. But then again you probably wanted to match the trim of the tank. I was just wondering. Eddie Link to comment
foo Posted September 9, 2003 Share Posted September 9, 2003 I started gluing my acrylic Saturday. It takes an hour before the bond sets enough to work with it so it's been taking a while to glue the whole thing together since I don't have enough clamps. I would glue a side then watch some football, then glue another side... Almost done now. Tomorrow I'll glue the last side to it. I cut the outside pieces 1/16" oversized so I can flush the excess trim with the router. After I do that I can get back to working on my hood. Link to comment
bertz_maru Posted September 9, 2003 Share Posted September 9, 2003 nice setup foo... love the hood mattgeko... but is there any reason why you didnt go with a stain than the black paint? the hood looks like it has some nice grain for stain... Link to comment
Phish Posted September 9, 2003 Share Posted September 9, 2003 Maybe he just likes black, I wear black everyday, socks, underwear, shirts, pants, shoes... Hair.... umm, thats it... But Black is cool, But I see your point, Red Oak, would look really good IMO Link to comment
MattGecko Posted September 9, 2003 Author Share Posted September 9, 2003 I would have much rather gone with a dark cherry stain, but I can't stand mismatching furniture even worse. I modeled the mini bow stand after my AGA 72G stand. I know I committed a sin my painting oak , but you can still see the wood grain though the paint. Yesterday was Christmas for me! My Ushio HQI bulb, reflector & base are here. Thank you Hellolight. A local glass shop only wants $25, to cut a piece of 1/4" tempered glass to fit my hood exactly. So now I have to find some aluminum "U" channel to make a track for the glass to slide on. Fuge is half glued, but not as nice looking as Foo's is. I think I'm going to use a Maxi-jet 1200 to pump the water back up to an AQ150 (without the motor). use as a water return. I'm about out of project money so I will have wait on making some kind of cool water return manifold. Hey Phish - I'm with you on the black thing, I love my blk/blk convertible mustang. Ok I'm done rambling for now. Link to comment
SeaMountain Posted September 9, 2003 Share Posted September 9, 2003 Dear Nano-Reefers, We would like to know why you keep questioning MattGecko's choice of black. Sincerely, The Rainbow Coalition, The ACLU, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Phish. Link to comment
MattGecko Posted September 10, 2003 Author Share Posted September 10, 2003 Laughing at SeaMountain's comment!! Hey Foo - Thanks for the dimensions. Santa Teresa Glass is who is going to be cutting my shield. I picked up the plastic screws from HD, 8/32" thumbscrews & nuts for the fuge adj. gates. Also picked up the 1/4" U channel from OSH, this is coming along nicely. The HQI will be 1 3/4" away from the glass & the glass will be about a 1/2" from the water. Does this sound OK?? Link to comment
foo Posted September 11, 2003 Share Posted September 11, 2003 Matt - Santa Teresa Glass? I'll give them a call when I get to messing with the light again. You should be able to get away with 1 3/4" since you're going to have a couple fans drawing air into your hood. But only a half inch on the other side to the water? You keep your water level pretty high. I guess that's okay as long as you take the glass out and clean it every once in a while and the water doesn't splash out. Latest pictures of the refugium. You can see where the water intake bulkhead on the left and I'm going to use a Rio 600 to pump water out of the bulkhead on the right side. The chiller will be right below the return pump. Link to comment
foo Posted September 11, 2003 Share Posted September 11, 2003 I have a little bit of finishing work and plumbing for the overflow and return but the fuge is for the most part done. Here's another picture with the minibow infront of the fuge. I'm going to drill two holes in the back of the hood for the plumbing. Link to comment
MattGecko Posted September 11, 2003 Author Share Posted September 11, 2003 Lookin good Foo!!! Im going to go order my glass tonight. Installed the HQI & the tracks for the glass. Link to comment
MattGecko Posted September 15, 2003 Author Share Posted September 15, 2003 Fuges is done (Thanks Mike for the AQ402 & the bulkhead). Link to comment
Chrash236 Posted September 15, 2003 Share Posted September 15, 2003 Matt, Go to Home Depot and get male and female end and a piece of pipe that can go through the entire line, then get two O rings and just screw them together snugly not tight because the O rings will pop out of place and leak. This should work, and you will be able to take it off and clean it if need be. If you want to do it the jerry rig way go and get a bigger line that fits on the outside of the gray ring and just put a c-clamp around it. then put Silicone around the top to prevent any leaks whatsoever. HTH Chris Link to comment
SeaMountain Posted September 15, 2003 Share Posted September 15, 2003 Silicone... what else! Rough it up a bit with some fine grade sandpaper on both surfaces so there'll be good adhesion to the bond. The other option is Plastic Weld. Something like Solder-It Plastic Weld. Check out www.solder-it.com/solderpaste.asp for an example. But once you use a product like this it is a permanent bond. A chemical reaction actually *melts* the plastic and it rehardens together forming a *weld*. Great progress btw. Link to comment
foo Posted September 15, 2003 Share Posted September 15, 2003 Matt - I'm glad the bulkhead and powerhead worked out for you. I like SeaMountain's idea of bonding the plastic. But instead of bonding the vinyl directly to the plastic of the old filter, I would glue it to a threaded or barbed pvc fitting so that the hose can be removed and/or replaced. I don't clean my vinyl tubing, when they get too dirty or clogged I just replace them with new line. Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.