The FrankenReefer 450

[code4]

If you have any thoughts of how to remove some scratches let me know. I am OCD just enough to want to swap out my tank over them. I know. Crazy.

Following your build.

 

[code4]

Sounds like a nice weather job. Time to figure out how to drain down my tank. And keep my work from dripping into the tank water!

Thanks

 

[code4]

You said painstakingly. So we are talking at least 30 minutes per scratch?

 

[UncommonSense]

Sounds like a nice weather job. Time to figure out how to drain down my tank. And keep my work from dripping into the tank water!

Thanks

What about clamping a plastic catch container (Tupperware?) to the tank wall under the work area? — you might even be able to just tape it to the tank wall as such that your working water/cerium slurry flows into it, a let it float!

You said painstakingly. So we are talking at least 30 minutes per scratch?

It could be, depending on the depth! I haven’t done it manually in a while, but I recall it being a labor of love!

 

[code4]

I do love my hobby. I think I will try it on an old empty tank. To see just what kind of mess it will make.

Thanks for the ideas. And I can't wait to see where your tank takes you.

 

[UncommonSense]

I do love my hobby. I think I will try it on an old empty tank. To see just what kind of mess it will make.

it could be worth trying to tape off around one side of your target scratched area so you can peel the tape and have a clear delineation line between cerium oxide polished scratches and raw scratches!

Thanks for the ideas. And I can't wait to see where your tank takes you.

Of course, I’m always happy to help!

Also, thank you! I hope that it ends up being the perfectly shaped tank upgrade I’ve been wanting, and possibly a tank I never have to replace… but, that all comes down to craftsmanship!

 

[code4]

I do believe you have the skills for this. Blew my mind. So kewl to be able to save a tank.

 

[UncommonSense]

another day, another update:

I spent a few hours today working on undesirable silicone removal, “armored” seam “guard” removal, and solvent scrubbing the glass…

The seam “armor” plastic strips are honestly laughably bad… floppy, soft plastic… you could tie a knot with it!

As another warning to RS owners, here’s the bottom seam before I sliced between glass and seam “armor”, to within ~1mm of the structural seam:

After slicing the entire pictured span:

This black silicone, in general, is not something I’m a fan of… the above photo has a ~3/8” (~10mm) deep slice in the silicone the whole way which is all but invisible…


— Final products of today’s work, with the majority of my cleaning focus being on/around the bulkhead holes:

 

[craiginphoenix]

This thread is amazing. I am doing the same project with a G1 525XL and this has been extremely helpful. I think I am going to use the same bottom layout as your design, with the exception of removing the overflow, not ready to try to do something like that. I am going to try to reenforce around it.

Was originally going to try to cut a long piece from my donor tank for bottom front structural support, because that seems like where most problems occur but it will be much easier to use several smaller cuts.

I am far less experienced that you are. I have never cut glass before, but I have a lot of glass from the donor tank available to work with.

Thank you for documenting this.

 

[UncommonSense]

Was originally going to try to cut a long piece from my donor tank for bottom front structural support, because that seems like where most problems occur but it will be much easier to use several smaller cuts.

I’ve actually pivoted away from the bottom center braces as I’ve gone through revisions…

Technically, just the bottom perimeter brace is ideal… a single long, thin strip of glass, then shorter lengths for sides and rear!

I don’t think switching from a 5-6’ long strip to 3x 20-24” strips will make a massive difference, assuming they’re siliconed together well at the two butt joints! (Because you have at least 2x the surface area siliconed to the tank bottom, vs. the tank walls)

am far less experienced that you are. I have never cut glass before

Just definitely use a continuous rim diamond blade specifically marketed for use with glass, and treat it like you’re sanding a groove in a stone block… it’s just abrasive; slowly but surely eating its way though the glass…

For long, thin rods; I recommend making 3+ passes along your cut line, grinding your groove maybe 1/8” deeper with each pass… this helps to ensure that the glass ends up snapping directly along the line you’ve scored, when it does eventually break off the sheet! (Wether from the saws vibration/cutting error, or when you manually snap that section to part it off from the sheet along your deep cut groove)

Thank you for documenting this

Of course! It’s been a massive learning experience for me, and it’s good to see that the info is going to good use!

Just practice substantial caution when working with this very heavy, very sharp, very brittle material… use GFCI protection while wet cutting with your saw, wear a face shield, thick gloves, closed toed shoes… — I got a glass splinter in a fingertip months ago; it just finally worked its way out last week… this stuff isn’t fun if you get hurt by it, so please be careful!

 

[That Crusso Kid]

What gives over here? No updates since April? Unacceptable!

 

[UncommonSense]

What gives over here? No updates since April? Unacceptable!

Yeah… I’ve been wanting to rotate back to this project, and get it all put together… especially given the two month silicone cure!

Thankfully, work will be slowing down enough soon for me to get a few days in on this project each week!



On that note, I’m confident that I want to build a new stand… i’m undecided if I want to go with a simple 2x6/2x4 lumber stand, a plywood and lumber hybrid, or a fully plywood stand with beams made of 2-3 layers of 3/4” plywood, screwed, glued, and nailed…

The latter options would create structural beams which do not warp at all, plus yield more stand interior space… but it would definitely be more work!

Does anyone have experience building structural plywood stands? Or would I be reinventing the wheel by reverse engineering Glass Cages design?

 

[That Crusso Kid]

Yeah… I’ve been wanting to rotate back to this project, and get it all put together… especially given the two month silicone cure!

Thankfully, work will be slowing down enough soon for me to get a few days in on this project each week!



On that note, I’m confident that I want to build a new stand… i’m undecided if I want to go with a simple 2x6/2x4 lumber stand, a plywood and lumber hybrid, or a fully plywood stand with beams made of 2-3 layers of 3/4” plywood, screwed, glued, and nailed…

The latter options would create structural beams which do not warp at all, plus yield more stand interior space… but it would definitely be more work!

Does anyone have experience building structural plywood stands? Or would I be reinventing the wheel by reverse engineering Glass Cages design?

I do not personally have any experience building a stand from structural plywood only. There was a member that built his stand this way. I think it was for a standard 180. Unfortunately, I do not recall the members name inadvertently deleted all my watched threads a few moths ago. Strangely enough, though, I can remember the design he used for his profile pic.

Not a fan of aluminum T-slot with a skin?

 

[UncommonSense]

Not a fan of aluminum T-slot with a skin?

I’m not opposed to it at all!

it’s just a lot cheaper, more familiar, and easier for me to build out of wood, plus the concrete floor the tank will go on is an utter nightmare; 3.5” of rise across the 5ft span, plus mild front/rear diagonal sloping…

I can’t just pour a concrete leveling pad there for several reasons (though I did float some underlayment cement to get rid of the most egregious errors)… so, I built a leveling platform out of judiciously shimmed/supported 2x6, which should work out well…

All that to say that I could definitely use a T-slot stand with some specialized leveling feet, though I’m unsure that the location, or the tank justify it!

 

[UncommonSense]

Well, it’s officially time to pick back up where I left off on the FrankenReefer!

Today was predominantly cleanup from 6-8 weeks of working around this tank, thrashing on work projects and making massive messes… effectively clearing a path back to my assembly table!

— the glass stash was getting a bit out of hand, with more than I’d like sitting around, incorrectly stored, waiting to be broken… so, I dug up the wood scraps from several recent projects, and got to building myself another quick and dirty glass rack… this time, for 2’x2’ panes, vs. 2’x4’ panes!

Hilariously, it’s almost exclusively made of aquarium stands, less one old redwood heart 2x2… Red Sea for bottom and back, Aquatop for sides and top, plus some dividers, Glass Cages for front uprights, and bottom dividers!

In any case, it’s definitely going to do the job keeping my smaller format sheets organized and stored, despite being comically hideous!

— I installed a 3’ T5HO fixture inside my fume hood, capitalizing on the wasted space in there, knowing I’ll need as much light as I can get to do this job right!

— conveniently, 1.5” PVC pipe lengths with a few wraps of masking tape make phenomenal alignment dowels for the bulkhead holes, which should make locating the doubler plate relatively simple!

Tomorrow will likely be more work prep; getting the fume hood ducting plumbed, getting the tank cleaned out from months of construction dust, checking my work removing the old interior silicone bead and scraping all residue, and test fitting/length trimming the first glass reinforcement components!

 

[code4]

Not hideous at all. Functional!

 

[UncommonSense]

I carved out some time this evening to dry fit glass components inside the FrankenReefer, and make numerous small alterations to them… so far, the entire bottom of the tank is ready for final prep/masking!

I also opted to cut out a few 3.25”x5” pieces of 10mm, and 12mm glass to serve as my “whiteness lamination”:

These plates of glass represent the widest area of doubler plate silicone which won’t have direct air exposure during the two-month long cure process… I plan to laminate them together at the same time as the doubler plate, using silicone from the same cartridge… then, let the witness lamination cure on the tank bottom in essentially identical conditions to the doubler plate…

two months of curing later, I’ll cut this whiteness lamination in half via wet saw, and examine the silicone in the core to confirm that my doubler plate lamination has completely cured through!

— With any luck, I’ll be starting to lay silicone later this week!

 

[UncommonSense]

Success!!

I finally had both the time and motivation to tackle the frankenreefer’s most challenging parts, the laminations!

I started with the overflow box’s smoked black glass, laying ~3/16” beads around 1” apart, and pressing the panes together with 1/16” acrylic spacers to set a silicone gap… the end result is a series of silicone “strips and chimneys” between the pairs of 6mm panes…

These silicone strips do not extend to any one edge of these three lamination… the idea here being to get the strips fully cured over the course of a few weeks, before I go back for another pass with silicone, injecting around the full perimeter of each lamination at time of assembly/install!

With that done, I turned to the tank itself, and its doubler plate…

How to dump a full tube of silicone in 15 seconds (for the doubler plate lamination):

End result of today’s work:

Using a silicone with a longer working time made this job actually go remarkably smoothly! I found myself forgetting things like tooling bulkhead holes promptly, only to find that the silicone was still quite workable!

— I will say that the clamps/press method ended up being totally unnecessary here… I didn’t even need my full body weight to equally compress the doubler plate, it just moved very slowly!

Next up, installing the remaining five bottom bracing strips… then, I can build my way up the walls to the eurobrace, before waiting on the overflow and doubler laminations to finish curing so they can be mated together!

(As an aside, I’m heavily considering hunting down a 5ft long pane of glass in 12-19mm to cut my front euro bar from, if anyone in my area has a salvage grade 5-6ft tank around? — it would be the right way to do it, vs. 20” segments with center braces stacked under each seam…)

 

[That Crusso Kid]

Success!!

I finally had both the time and motivation to tackle the frankenreefer’s most challenging parts, the laminations!

I started with the overflow box’s smoked black glass, laying ~3/16” beads around 1” apart, and pressing the panes together with 1/16” acrylic spacers to set a silicone gap… the end result is a series of silicone “strips and chimneys” between the pairs of 6mm panes…

These silicone strips do not extend to any one edge of these three lamination… the idea here being to get the strips fully cured over the course of a few weeks, before I go back for another pass with silicone, injecting around the full perimeter of each lamination at time of assembly/install!

With that done, I turned to the tank itself, and its doubler plate…

How to dump a full tube of silicone in 15 seconds (for the doubler plate lamination):

End result of today’s work:

Using a silicone with a longer working time made this job actually go remarkably smoothly! I found myself forgetting things like tooling bulkhead holes promptly, only to find that the silicone was still quite workable!

— I will say that the clamps/press method ended up being totally unnecessary here… I didn’t even need my full body weight to equally compress the doubler plate, it just moved very slowly!

Next up, installing the remaining five bottom bracing strips… then, I can build my way up the walls to the eurobrace, before waiting on the overflow and doubler laminations to finish curing so they can be mated together!

(As an aside, I’m heavily considering hunting down a 5ft long pane of glass in 12-19mm to cut my front euro bar from, if anyone in my area has a salvage grade 5-6ft tank around? — it would be the right way to do it, vs. 20” segments with center braces stacked under each seam…)

I like the simple, yet effective, venting system.

What kind of silicone did you use this time?

 

[UncommonSense]

I like the simple, yet effective, venting system.

What kind of silicone did you use this time?

The perimeter inlet vent hood is indeed working quite well! The smell of vinegar came down to a dull roar as soon as I dropped it down over the tank rim…

I’m using Momentive RTV100 series (RTV108 [translucent], specifically) wherever I can these days! It’s got roughly twice the working time of ASI, and is rated for over 400PSI in tension… It’s also a zero slump formula which behaves nearly identically to ASI, albeit with slightly less viscosity! (The latter allows you to get a bit more haptic feedback when seating glass into a silicone bead, inevitably leading to me doing away with seam thickness shims for general work!)