Wooden dowel and razor blade nano scraper

[growsomething]

There were a few spots I couldn't fit a flipper on a pole between the glass and rock in my tank, plus the rounded plastic edge wouldn't get tight to the silicone.  I'd been using my hand and a razor blade but couldn't hold it at the right angle for a few truly awkward places.  Read up a bit on diy scrapers ppl made, and found one person who used an acrylic rod, cut a slot, and hot glued a razor blade at an angle.  I basically copied this with an old never used wooden dowel I had in stock.  The kerf (cut) was made with a dremel fine tooth multitool blade, and the razor went in with just enough difficulty by hand that I figured it would stay in place when the wood swelled with water.  The degree is something like 20° or 160° depending on your point of reference.  It actually worked.  The only downside I can see is having to cut several inches off the dowel and a new kerf after the wood splits from drying out a few times.

 

 

 

It seemed about the right angle, or could have been even few degrees sharper.  Took off a 1/4" coraline spot along the tank back silicone.  Here's how much it tilted from scraping along the silicone:

 

Works great for limited application, especially in a nano tank.

[DaveDe]

Lol. Same idea - I've been using a shish kabob stick with the razor blade wedge onto one end and it works great. I can fit in to the tight spots easier and I'm not putting my hands in the tank. A win-win. 

[growsomething]

I read that somewhere too, but couldn't figure out how they attached it.  Do you have a pic?  I've got a lot of shish kabob sticks.

[DaveDe]

22 minutes ago, growsomething said:

I read that somewhere too, but couldn't figure out how they attached it.  Do you have a pic?  I've got a lot of shish kabob sticks.

Just wedge it into the slot on the razor blade. Not too stable as it does on rare occassion fall off. I think ill work on improving this.

[growsomething]

Ah, I wasn't sure from the descriptions.  Thanks. 

[mcarroll]

Definitely effective, but can definitely scrape/scratch glass pretty easily too if you hit the wrong angle.  IMO I'd file down the corners and run the angle as low as the stick would allow.

[SaltyGallon]

I'm gunna give this a go, thanks! I've been using a pair of PTFE coated disc magnets - which are super low profile but take ages to tackle the hard stuff. This is great though 🙂

[Reefkid88]

I just did this with a broken plastic hanger and well,just after a few days of sitting there after use,it was rusted. 

 

 I even washed it off with distilled water and dried it off with a rag. 

 

 It worked great though. Maybe a stainless blade of some sort would be better. 

[saxns]

I agree with the sharpening of the knife blade, wth would you throw them away when they're so easy to sharpen?

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[jservedio]

On 3/2/2021 at 10:26 PM, mcarroll said:

Definitely effective, but can definitely scrape/scratch glass pretty easily too if you hit the wrong angle.  IMO I'd file down the corners and run the angle as low as the stick would allow.

I've heard this a ton over the years and have been using regular old Home Depot generic razorblades to clean my glass for well over 10 years now every week or so and never once scratched my glass even with my lack of care, so I decided to do a quick experiment and actually try and scratch my new tank with a razorblade. It simply won't scratch. Even using the sharp corner of a new razorblade and trying to cut into the glass like I was trying to score it, it just dulled the blade of the razor and my glass is pristine.

 

I think it just comes down to the fact that glass is absurdly hard. Most new tanks are using high quality glass and are going to have a Moh's hardness of around 6 and the cheap steel used in disposable construction razorblades just isn't hard enough enough to do damage. Maybe if you buy some specialty razorblades from Germany made with some crazy hard tool steel you'll easily scratch the hell out of your tank, but I can't make regular razorblades scratch the glass trying as hard as I can. Destroying your silicone or scratching acrylic is another matter entirely.

 

I think this is an old wives tale with the razorblade attachment on magnetic cleaners being blamed for the scratches in glass when in reality it wasn't the metal at all, but the extremely hard minerals found in some sands - especially black sand which has things like andesite, basalt and volcanic glass that can be significantly harder than your glass and very easily scratch it.

[DaveDe]

Yay ive been using blades for years too -  never a scratch.