Alright guys, So if you didn't read about my catostropic tank failier, I'll recap real quick. I had bought a tank (I'm not going to say who until it's all resolved so I can give them a chance) But I called them today and the statement the guy gave me was that Acylic is Acylic. he even stated that for a small tank I could go to my local hardware store and pick some up. I asked him what kind of bonding agent they use. He said for smaller tanks Weld-on 3 or 16 would work, but said that no one could make a large tank because of the gun required to spread the product. What kind of product are they possibly using cause he would tell me. Wouldn't they use weld-on 4?
Acylic Questions
- Thread starter dadsoldtruck
- Start date
hi, well to let you know i bild acrylic aquariums here in the UK, the glue that i use is called tensol 70 which is a 2 part mix, it does take a bit of time to dry but when left over night it will set hard, i have been making aquariums for the past 20yrs.
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I would take them to court obviously they do not know how to build an aquarium out of acrylic yet they told you they can.
you still have to be carefull even when making an acrylic tank, every tank i build always gets a water test before it goes to the customer.
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tank held water for six months, but one side fell off on saturday. I'm trying to make a case because it does appear they don't know what they are doing, but I need proof and need to know where to find it.
You can only use Cell Cast Acrylic for building aquariums. Acrylic is not just acrylic, it also has to do with the way it is manufactured and the type of acrylic. Each manufacture has different grades and casts of acrylic. For example Cyro Industries manufacures the Acrylite brand. Acrylite has different grades the FF Sheet is an extruded sheet
Here are the specs for Cyro Acrylite FF Sheet.
Acrylite GP sheet is a cell cast sheet and this is what Cyro recommends for manufacturing aquariums.
Here are the specs for the Cyro Acrylite GP Sheet.
From looking at your photos it appears to me that a molecular bond was not achieved when the panels were welded together. This could be from using the wrong solvent cement, or using it improperly. Once bonded it should never break on that weld. I also find it to be odd that the sides bowed so much, I could only see something like that with an open unsupported top on 1/2" acrylic. This tank did have a welded top correct? 1/2" should have been fine and the dimensions of the aquarium if he used cell cast acrylic and welded it properly. Weldon 40 is only recommended by the manufacturer IPS to be used on thicknesses greater then 1/2". This means he should have used a weldon 3 or 4. Weldon 16 should never be used as the welding cement, but only to fix leaks in bad welds. The gun he is probably talking about is for weldon 40 which is a two part solvent cement.
I am guessing if he told you acrylic is acrylic that he doesn't know anything about building acrylic aquariums, maybe his trade was building acrylic show cases.
Sorry for your loss, and I hope you can get something worked out.
Here are the specs for Cyro Acrylite FF Sheet.
Acrylite GP sheet is a cell cast sheet and this is what Cyro recommends for manufacturing aquariums.
Here are the specs for the Cyro Acrylite GP Sheet.
From looking at your photos it appears to me that a molecular bond was not achieved when the panels were welded together. This could be from using the wrong solvent cement, or using it improperly. Once bonded it should never break on that weld. I also find it to be odd that the sides bowed so much, I could only see something like that with an open unsupported top on 1/2" acrylic. This tank did have a welded top correct? 1/2" should have been fine and the dimensions of the aquarium if he used cell cast acrylic and welded it properly. Weldon 40 is only recommended by the manufacturer IPS to be used on thicknesses greater then 1/2". This means he should have used a weldon 3 or 4. Weldon 16 should never be used as the welding cement, but only to fix leaks in bad welds. The gun he is probably talking about is for weldon 40 which is a two part solvent cement.
I am guessing if he told you acrylic is acrylic that he doesn't know anything about building acrylic aquariums, maybe his trade was building acrylic show cases.
Sorry for your loss, and I hope you can get something worked out.
well i have never used the weld on stuff as you cant get it here in the UK so i cant say how good the stuff is but here in the UK i use a glue called TENSOL 70, its a 2 part mix and what it does is when it is in the join of the material it heats up and bonds the 2 pieces of material together and then becomes one (solvent weld) so all i can realy say is that they may have used the wrong type of glue for the material or the material used was not good enough, you have cell cast acrylic, extruded acrylic, i only use cell cast for aquarium building.
i did have to go and repair a BIG acrylic tank for a friend which was 2 inch thick and started to come apart so i had to inject the 2 part mix into the gap for it to hold and the tank was 3 meters long x 4ft high x 2ft wide, what i found out was that this company that made that tank did not use the correct glue.
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i did have to go and repair a BIG acrylic tank for a friend which was 2 inch thick and started to come apart so i had to inject the 2 part mix into the gap for it to hold and the tank was 3 meters long x 4ft high x 2ft wide, what i found out was that this company that made that tank did not use the correct glue.
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the link for the Acylite GP says I don't have access to the site... But thank you so much for the info you have given me. This will really help us start to build a case.
Also, ya the top was "welded" on like the rest of the tank. It was a 4" lip all the way around. One solid piece.