Building an Acrylic Aquarium Professional Plastics（构建一个丙烯酸水族馆专业的塑料）.pdf

Building an Acrylic Aquarium by Brad Newton Building your own Acrylic tank is a rewarding, cost saving, and enjoyable project. If you have basic carpentry power tool skills you should have no trouble building your own beautiful Acrylic tank. The tools required are as follows: • A fixed base router (preferably one with at least 1.75 HP ½ collet) • A 2-flute, straight cut router bit (½ or larger diameter, and 1.25 cutting length or more is preferred) ½ shank is also a plus, since these bits get very hot when cutting acrylic. • A fixed straight edge (at least 2 longer than your longest Acrylic piece) • 2-C Clamps • 2 PVC holding jigs (these will be detailed in the article) • Door panel or similar flat work surface • Syringe or solvent bottle (get a couple, they can fail at a bad time) • WeldOn 4 Solvent cement (get a pint, better to have too much than not enough) Optional as per application: • A 2-flute straight cut router bit with flush cut bearing (for trimming down tank edges for a more finished look) • Holesaws (if drilling for plumbing is required) • Jigsaw plastic jigsaw blades (for larger cutouts) • Circular saw with laminate blade (for cutting down stock) • Drill with bits (for smaller holes, or starting a path for a jigsaw run) Before we begin... This is a rather time consuming project as far as locating a plastic source, getting the seaming process down and assembling the tank. Plan on at least a weekend to practice with Acrylic edge routing and seaming, and more time if you’re not satisfied with the results. The first thing to do when deciding to attempt this project is coming up with the desired tank size. This will determine the amount