Lousybreed
Well-Known Member
Ok, I have been researching acrylic tank construction for several months now. I will be building my first tank over the Christmas holiday. My frag tank will be 2'x5'x12" H and I am pretty excited to make it. The most obvious "clash" of information has come from DIY King's imfamous "build your own acrylic tank" video (the one that is 41 minutes long). If you watch his video you are taught that you only have to wait 5 minutes between welds before you move on to the next step. He also doesn't use pins. He also welds vertical seams. He preps the acrylic edges with a hand scrapper.
Contrast this to the other literature and posts that acrylic experts posted out there. You must use pins for a good weld. If one pin is loose you need to shim the acrylic until it is perfectly even and all pins have equal pressure. You need to wait 4 hrs between making a weld and moving on to the next weld because moving before the 4 hr mark will cause structural damage to the weld area and your tank will fail. You may only do welds on horizontal seams (thus you must move the tank multiple times for each weld. If you do vertical welds they will fail. A router must be used for the edges. You must let the tank cure for a minimum of a week before putting water into it. This route seems like it is 10 times more work. Using the DIY King method, you can build an entire tank in an afternoon. Using this method you will build a tank over the span of a week.
What are people's thoughts? I am assuming that if you are making a small tank it doesn't matter as much, however I could be wrong on all accounts. Basically I feel like The DIY King has made big tanks using the method he describes and others have made great tanks with the longer method. Is there a right way? Or if you have a properly prepped edge do both methods work equally?
Contrast this to the other literature and posts that acrylic experts posted out there. You must use pins for a good weld. If one pin is loose you need to shim the acrylic until it is perfectly even and all pins have equal pressure. You need to wait 4 hrs between making a weld and moving on to the next weld because moving before the 4 hr mark will cause structural damage to the weld area and your tank will fail. You may only do welds on horizontal seams (thus you must move the tank multiple times for each weld. If you do vertical welds they will fail. A router must be used for the edges. You must let the tank cure for a minimum of a week before putting water into it. This route seems like it is 10 times more work. Using the DIY King method, you can build an entire tank in an afternoon. Using this method you will build a tank over the span of a week.
What are people's thoughts? I am assuming that if you are making a small tank it doesn't matter as much, however I could be wrong on all accounts. Basically I feel like The DIY King has made big tanks using the method he describes and others have made great tanks with the longer method. Is there a right way? Or if you have a properly prepped edge do both methods work equally?
