How to adhere acrylic to plywood?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Noto;4574919; said:
I'm going to build a plywood tank with acrylic windows too. I intend to use Sweetwater epoxy paint to seal the tank. I emailed the support staff at Aquatic Ecosystems to ask if it would stick to acrylic; they said it would as long as the acrylic was sanded first. I'll put up a build thread once I get the tank started.
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you are not going to use any type of silicone or naythign to seal the acrylic to the epoxy?
 
No. I may use silicone as a gasket between the acrylic and plywood, but the actual seal will be directly between the acrylic and the epoxy paint. I'm still working on the details of the design.
 
Noto;4574991; said:
No. I may use silicone as a gasket between the acrylic and plywood, but the actual seal will be directly between the acrylic and the epoxy paint. I'm still working on the details of the design.
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I guess this is possible, but I think you really need to reconsider not using silicone. Either way, good luck!
 
BadOleRoss;4575319; said:
I guess this is possible, but I think you really need to reconsider not using silicone. Either way, good luck!
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How would you recomend doing the windows? I am getting confused, lol
 
BadOleRoss;4577417; said:
I would silicone the plexiglass in place and call it a day.
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man oh man, :confused:

45% say use silicone, 45% say dont and 10% say to use rubber gaskets.

:confused::confused::confused:

I am worse off then when I started this project
 
As far as the voting goes, only count the votes from people who have actually been there. The trick to using silicone of plexiglass is finding a silicone that will actually stick to the plexiglass itself. Most silicones like GE1 reportedly dont do well with plexiglass but I have used them with success on smaller builds, like sumps. Pete used Dow795 of his build to install his plexiglass so thats where I would start. IMO, testing is key. I would not go out and buy 5 tubes of silicone just to have it fail. Get some Dow795, test it to see if it works on plexiglass above and below water level and then do it. Or, send Pete a PM and get his thoughts. Silicone is easy compared to a gasket! Imagine drilling all of the holes, creating a gasket, putting in the bolts/screws w/o breaking the plexiglass......no thanks!.
 
I have heard good things about 3M 5200 but have never used it myself. It is available online through Lowe's I believe. It's not that I dont believe people that have not been there, it's just that I have discovered that many times they are repeating something they have read and believe it to be true. I remember not that long ago we thought that liquid rubber could be used by itself to seal a tank and viewing window. We couldn't have been more wrong.....
 
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