vipersnake Posted February 14, 2011 Share Posted February 14, 2011 Hello guys, im thinking of building a pico out of acrylic and i was thinking to flame polish the top part of the tank once its built. will this affect in anyways the construction integrity of the tank?. thx in advance Link to comment
gabe_j Posted February 14, 2011 Share Posted February 14, 2011 should be good, so long as you don't set it on fire. also its best not to use an actual flame, try a heat gun. its much more reliable. take its slow and don't get too close with the heat source or you will bubble up the edges and that just looks dumb. Link to comment
vipersnake Posted February 14, 2011 Author Share Posted February 14, 2011 Nice, this is more or so the design for the Pico, the hole in the lid is so i can hang on the Acuaclear 30 filter since its my first time playing around with acrylic i didn't want to venture into AIO picos maybe when i feel more comfortable. another question i wanted to ask... do the sides have to sit on top of the botton or can i just put the sides on the sides of the bottom piece, like this |_|?? Link to comment
Flicker Posted February 14, 2011 Share Posted February 14, 2011 I tried this myself - the problem that I ran into is that if you "wrap" the bottom with the side pieces you have to be EXTREMELY accurate when cutting it. If the sides sit on top of it and you are off by 1/16 or even 1" it doesn't matter. But if the sides all attach to the edge of the bottom you will not have any play at all. It is very hard to cut 1/32 of an inch off if you don't get it right the 1st time. I ended up ditching the whole thing by the time I was done.... Link to comment
gabe_j Posted February 14, 2011 Share Posted February 14, 2011 its nothing a tablesaw with a good blade and a guide wont help. or if you've got acess to some machine shop you can cut it up on a mill. accuracy is down in the .0001 of you're good at setting it up. if not you can be really off. and are better off using a table saw. also make sure once you're zero'd in you don't tighten everything down to fast or you'll shift your piece, throwing off the entire workplane. Link to comment
vipersnake Posted February 14, 2011 Author Share Posted February 14, 2011 well i don't have access to a machine shop although i have been wanting to get a small 10" table saw or a small router table... jumm i think this might be a good excuse to get one.. haha... now which one should i get since i cant afford the two of them? Ive read that routers are better because they leave a nice finish and no lines in the cut. but i think that since the router bit is bigger than the 1/8" saw i would waste more acrylic? Link to comment
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