Plans for first acrylic project. Refugium... Advise?

[Scuba_Steve]

I have a sheet of 1/4" x 24" x 48" cell cast acrylic I have had laying around for years waiting for a project. I am finally going to take a stab at acrylic work.

I want to build a refugium. This will connect to a 20 tall sump. I plan on teeing off of the return for the source, and having a small down spout to return water back to the sump, pictured to the left of the drawing.

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q71/andreapearson/fish/Cube/refugium.jpg

The dimensions will be 18W x 6D x 19H.

I am going to be cutting the acrylic with a 10" radial arm saw with a 60t carbide blade.

The pieces will then be sanded as flat as I can on a board with 220g sand paper glued down over 20".

Unless someone suggests something else, I will be using Weldon #16 seeing that I may not have perfect edges.

This is an extremely low budget project btw, so please try to not give advise that will add very much cost. The only things I need to buy are the blade, the weldon, and the sandpaper. Of course, if I am totally off, and money is required please let me know. Also let me know if anyone has any advise on the layout.

[troylee]

well a routed edge will yield the best possible edges for gluing.... weldon 3 or 4 is a million times stronger than 16 so i would use it and then seal with 16 if needed.... a radial arm saw is not a wise choice to cut it at all... i would ask around to borrow a table saw or have someone cut it for you....sanding the edges will round them and make gluing them that much harder... check out the acrylic fabrication thread here in the diy forum for some more insight on the sunject....;)

[glazer]

sounds like a fun project....

Your radial arm saw is just fine. Carbide tipped blade.... fine, better yet if it has TCG (triple chip) teeth. Acrylic is really easy to sand so it won't take much of it or much pressure. If you can make an L-shaped holder for your paper that would be your best bet. Assuming you still have the protective film on the acrylic, if not mask it... you can run the sandpaper jig so that the one side acts like a fence... I'm bettin' you know what I mean.
The #16 will be perfectly fine for your application... not a significant enough strength difference between it and 3 or 4 to matter.

If you have enough scraps left after your cut pieces you may want to practice a little bit on gluing the joints. I've had really good results by applying the 16 to one side then holding the two pieces in place with just a very slight amount of pressure, like almost none. Let the glue work on softening the surface of both pieces this way for a minute or two then clamp them together. It can be a little messy to work with and is why I suggested a little practice gluing first.

Good luck with it man... have fun and look forward to pics of the completed project. :D


Steve