welded acrylic tank

[srolesen]

got impatient waiting for the slowboat from china, so made spur of the moment tank instead
pictures here-> https://picasaweb.google.com/106787921401277074920/February92012
figured tank with welded ends would make it more solid because there's no pressure stress on material, but can acrylic hold ?

 

[notsmoking]

I am not sure if it can or not.... but it is a darn nice looking tank great job

 

[Robert T]

Could you explain how you did this?! It looks like you've eliminated the end caps with this idea, very cool, I like it.

Robert

 

[srolesen]

thanks
when you put in propanone in between 2 acrylic surfaces both will soften, and if you apply pressure they will bond together like they were made that way, looks funny in the sunlight lol

 

[srolesen]

What did you use to weld the material to itself? I like the looks and if it works.... I would like to try it. Thanks

cool, i just used acetone (propanone) it's extremely simple and strong bond
there's guide from plastic corp here -> How to glue Acrylic - YouTube
they wanna sell you their custom "glue" but really that's just a solvent much like acetone
what happens is that surface of acrylic get's soft and gummy and 2 pieces will now bond together when acetone has evaporated, make sure surfaces are flat, level, and pieces doesnt move.

i think it should make plastic alot more tolerant to eliquids, this was first time i tried it, so it seems to be easy to work with

 

[notsmoking]

Thanks srolesen, I like that idea, its much better than using some of the other methods I have tried. Do you think that you could do a "how To" on this also so I can see how you cut your parts and what I will need. sure would appreciate it and I bet others would to. thanks alot

 

[Robert T]

+1!

Robert

Thanks srolesen, I like that idea, its much better than using some of the other methods I have tried. Do you think that you could do a "how To" on this also so I can see how you cut your parts and what I will need. sure would appreciate it and I bet others would to. thanks alot

 

[srolesen]

lol i'm not qualified to make guide as i was just playing around, but this is what i did:

1. cut acrylic tube to ce2 length with metal handsaw, i used a drop of VG as lubricant for sawblade
2. "scraped" a line across flat acrylic with stanleyknife
3. put flat acrylic in big metalthing for holding metal and broke it off across "stanleyline"
4. flattend ends of acrylic tube with wet sandpaper for carpolish (grit 1000) so they would be perfectly smooth
5. washed stuff, and dried it off with paper towell
6. remove blue film from flat acrylic
7. put tube acrylic ontop of flat acrylic
8. put another piece of flat acrylic ontop
9. take syringe with needle and fill it with acetone
10. put needle on the place i want to weld pieces together and press slowly on syringe, you can see the acetone wicking very fast inbetween crosssection
11. make sure weld is good, and then wait 1 hour for surfaces to merge good
12. bake in oven at 110C celcius so i'm sure there will be no acetone left (because i'm impatient)
13. drill holes, use small drill first (i did it under running water so acrylic wouldnt melt)
14. i used dremmel to grind off excess material, but would be better with router

i need better method for drilling hole in acrylic as that was the hardest part, maybe it's better to drill before putting stuff together, i dont know

i was using acrylic because it's hard to get polycarbonate in special size here, so i figured i'd just play around with it as test for better polycarbonate tank, but now i dont know, it turned out to be strong enough in welded part that maybe polycarbonate is not needed if everything can be welded together instead of pressure grommets

 

[roadkillstewie]

Srol,

Google DIY acrylic, Diy Acrylic sump... can get more info on working with acrylic there.
The acrylic tubing tends to be a bit more brittle than sheets.
Drilling, slow & steady... help to leave the paper/plastic on the surface and have a board
backing it...important thing is to NOT change speed or stop 1/2 through drilling...the bit
can bind, cracking the the acrylic...and yes if possible, drill first.

 

[srolesen]

damn nice pictures stewie, how'd you drill those hole so nice ?

 

[roadkillstewie]

damn nice pictures stewie, how'd you drill those hole so nice ?

Steady Speed, occasionaly I'll clamp the acrylic between a pair of pieces of wood.
Once you've got it drilled, you can scrape then sand the edge for a smoother finish...
Gotta stress the steady drilling, got a nice scar on my hand from a piece that bound, cracked and spun free.

Google the things I listed earlier some good videos and articles in regards to working with acrylic...sumps/aquariums require
clean/smooth edges & quality acrylic...but all of it can carry over to this type application.


Search a bit, might be able to find a hole bit and match with a normal bit so you could drill the bottom/top in one shot.

 

[roadkillstewie]

btw, and i apologize for not saying so sooner... it is very nice work.

 

[srolesen]

haha no it's not, it's slightly crooked, and way too much room for liquid in there (13 ml) but for the first go at it i'm surprised at how nice it looks, it should be possible to make extremely nice looking tank this way

oh, and about the drilling, i'm sorry i allready look at links and have hard time finding pratical method for it

 

[roadkillstewie]

From the pics they look pretty darn good.

You're just drilling the end-caps correct?
What thickness are you using for them?

 

[srolesen]

thanks
yep, just drilling hole in the end caps , that was the hardest part by far.
for the tube itself i used ID 19mm, OD 25mm, but next time i'll use smaller one, for the endcaps i used plate 2mm, i weld 2 pieces together, next time maybe use 3 pieces instead idk

 

[roadkillstewie]

Check local acrylic shops, see if they have a scrap bin you can raid...

Thin stuff can be harder than the thicker honestly... most of what I use is 1/4 & 3/8. (approx 6 & 10mm?).
...I think 2mm is our 1/16, and personaly it's annoying to cut/work with because of how thin it is.

for drilling, yo might cut you some squares... weld/solvent them together, let them cure
then clamp them between pieces of wood... might even worth building you a drill box of sorts if you want to do a fair number of em.

 

[BuzzKilla]

Genius! Didn't know about this acrylic welding.... I guess I can rebuild my gem into something better!

Sent from my Nexus S

 

[srolesen]

problem is your gem allready looks stellar

 

[BuzzKilla]

the caps were too thin, and the cracked over time

now i can make it thicker and use something aside from a syringe tube

 

[srolesen]

i think i'm gonna try and make caps from 3 layers of 2 mm acrylic, with the middle layer beeing a snail kinda spiral thing to slowly remove eliquid from the top of the ce2 from when it get's flooded, but havent quite worked out what tools to use for that yet