240g Acrylic tank build thread (PIC HEAVY)

[Steve_C]

Thanks. Yep pretty much what I ended up doing. I used composite shims and did a full base under each of the 8 vertical uprights, then spaced the rest out about every 6". Worked out pretty well, I expected to hear some noises from the stand maybe during the initial fill up but never made a sound so I think it's all nice and fully supported. It's always fun shimming a long tank on the basement floor of a 1950's built house. I think the contractor back then must have been drunk

 

[Steve_C]

Another full day of work on it today. Still a VERY long way to go but starting to take shape a bit now.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

the backgrounds you do are awesome!! what hand tools are you using for that?

 

[Steve_C]

Thanks. I use a combination of things. Mainly just a normal 9" fishing fillet knife to start, then a 6" hot wire foam cutter, a small hand foam shaping tool that is like a little scraper, then for detail & texture work I use a wood burner with spade bit and a heat gun.

 

[Steve_C]

Another full day of work done on it today. Mucho progresseo'!

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[robham777]

Nice progress Steve. Do you work off a sketch or picture when doing the backgrounds?

 

[Steve_C]

Thanks. I usually do just a real quick drawing of how I think I want it to look ahead of time just to give myself a basic general idea of where I want the main focal points to be. With that said I do wander away from my initial plans quite a bit during the actual build process.

This is the quick drawing I did before I started this one. As you can see it's nothing super detailed at all. Just something to give me a basic idea of where I wanted the caves and the stalagmite and such to be place. Then I just somewhat "wing it" from there on out

 

[Steve_C]

You might be an aquarium/fish nerd when the answer to the question of "what are you doing tonight" is...."Oh not much, just building a stalactite/stalagmite for my tank"..lol

 

[Steve_C]

I like the looks of it, but I know I'm just causing myself headaches down the road when I have to net a sick fish lol

 

[Steve_C]

Took just a tick under 50hrs of carving but finally all the carving and texturing is thankfully done. Next step I get to look forward to is probably another 20 hours of dryloking/painting/sealing. Probably take a break from it for a few days at least though before starting that stage.