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Building Acrylic Tank

These do not contain dichloromethane, but if you dig around enough you will find they contain n n-dimethyl-p-toluidine and ethyl methacrylate. The reason for this is the safety issues of dichloromethane in enclosed spaces, eg nail bars !!! so an alternative safer non chlorinated solvent is used and by using a slower evaporating solvent and a longer chain polymerised methacrylate (ie ethyl not methyl) you have a product with a longer "opening time" before it hardens. You will find, if you paint methyl methacrylate and dichloromethane as nail art (tried it on a piece of wood, Tensol 12) it does not dry shiny but a matt & bubbly finish and it dries on the brush rather too quickly before you have been able to paint very far.
 
dichloromethane

Only ever used this as a paint stripper. (Once worked for a company that made paint strippers for the car industry & made then by the ton). Used chloroform as a cement either neat with a needle for models or thickened with perspex off cuts to give it 'body'.

Very little experience with nail bars other than they use UV to cure some their resins. How do ladies with long nails manage to do anything?

Following this thread with interest as I will be making a transparent raised top for a project with growing emersed plants and hope to be using perspex from oddments in the garage if only to say 'they were worth keeping and I knew they would come in handy'.
 
These do not contain dichloromethane

Most of them probably do not. But likely will do weld acrylic. In the old school days, acrylic tanks were built/cemented with Chloroform from the pharmacy. And it worked, in the private sector, there was nothing else available that did better back then.

I can only quote my local plastic supplier i went to ask information and advice. They stated that only solvent welding by far is no longer the best nor strongest bond for acrylic and they no longer use it. As said above they use an UVA glue for bonding PMMA, seems to also fill gaps with crystal clear end result if done correctly. It's a far safer bond that also seals. It's a resin type glue that likely also contains a part solvents. They offered me to build me an aquarium, but after hearing the price i backed off. €250 on top of the material cost. :confused:

Only ever used this as a paint stripper.

Nowadays MEK (methylethylketone) based strippers are used. This also seems to weld acrylic. I did read articles about it that people used this to build tanks, even paint thinner is successfully used for it. But it's internet, we read a lot out there.

Theoretically, Dichloromethane based still is allegedly the best solvent for it. I guess that's a reason for lots of people to stick with that with a better safe than sorry idea. But there seem to be a lot of stuff out there that do a similar and also sufficient job.
 
Nowadays MEK (methylethylketone) based strippers are used. This also seems to weld acrylic
They do weld, but if it is the wrong type of acrylic (extruded that has not been annealed) or has laser cut edges (and not annealed) or flame polished edges, MEK and acetone cause crazing due to release of stress, where as dichloromethane (and trichloromethane) tends to be more forgiving.
 

Tried UVA glue, but was very disappointed. My dentist uses some wonderful resin which is UVA cured. Assume if it is dental, one would have to remortgage the house to buy a pot. Sets a nice white colour, thinking of replacing all of my teeth with it. Lol.:D

A strong easy to use gap filling clear setting glue/resin bonding agent for perspex and/or poly-carbonate sounds to good to be true. If it does exist could some one out there let me know.
 
Since i also experienced that Dichloromethane products are about unavailable for private sale in My country as well in Germany. I searched at Google Germany. Found a webshop, selling plastics (pmma) cut to size and likely preped and the glue and present a complete tutorial on how to build an Acrylic tank.

https://kunststoffplattenonline.de/acrylglas-plexiglas-aquarium-selber-bauen/

They advise using Acrifix® 192
https://kunststoffplattenonline.de/product/acrifix-192-acrylglaskleber/

All tho if all is done correctly the aquarium should be super strong and waterproof. Still, the advice is its best to apply also additional Ottoseal S 72 PMMA sealant in the corners.
 
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Hi,

@Barbara Turner - The reason for my choice of acylic over Glass is that acrylic has a higher impact strength over glass and seen I have 2 young children just trying to cover potentially any accidents happening. Also for my personal preference I like a challenge.

@foxfish - I will be getting pre-cut sheets as these will be machine cut & polished as these are more precise than me using a router or a circular saw with acrylic cutting blade. I know there's a few build topics but what i'm looking for is precise UK links not US links to order the right type of acrylic as US call it cell cast acrylic but you cannot find that in the UK and as my understanding this is just terminology.

@zozo - Cell cast acrylic is terminology used by the US. If someone can provide a link to UK source on a product they use to build there own acrylic tank then at least I wouldn't be wasting money in potentially picking up the wrong type of acrylic.
Hi there Midlands plastics cut aquarium grade acrylics any size or shape.
 
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