Before I was the bodypainter, I built aquariums (lots of them) into old Macs, monitors, and various bits of furniture. A combination of burnout and the new hobby with the airbrush has kept me from creating anything new for the last several years however. Having recently regained access to my workbench in the garage, I've been messing around with acrylic again and am rebuilding one of my first and favorite aquariums, which had become oldweakandpathetic in the extreme.
Sadly, I haven't taken pictures of the entire process but I hope someone will find what I'm doing interesting and if you ever want to work with acrylic (Plexiglas), I can probably help.
I built this aquarium back in 1996. It's built into an oak end table I bought at a flea market. Holds about 13 gallons and is a nice little tank.
The problem is after moving from state to state, house to house, it got kind of weak and trashed. This week I am rebuilding it. As much as I like painting naked women, this is my real art. This is what lasts.
I started with a 4 x 8 sheet of acrylic and ripped out the bottom and side piece. I had previously bought the chunk of 4" acrylic tube pictured here.
<a href="http://www.techquarium.com/hextank/pictures/p4181560cs.jpg"target="_blank"><img src="http://www.techquarium.com/hextank/thumbs/th_p4181560cs.jpg" border="0"></a>
When we're done it'll all fit together with the table pieces. All shown here.
<a href="http://www.techquarium.com/hextank/pictures/p4181559cs.jpg"target="_blank"><img src="http://www.techquarium.com/hextank/thumbs/th_p4181559cs.jpg"border="0"></a>
We have to bend the long piece 5 times to make a hexagonal tank. To do this, we'll clamp the piece to the desk and use a propane torch to heat the acrylic until it will bend. Once soft, we have enough time to take the piece off and line it up with the base of the aquarium (already cut) to get the angle just right. After it cools a bit, we clamp, heat, and bend again.
<a href="http://www.techquarium.com/hextank/pictures/p4181561cs.jpg"target="_blank"><img src="http://www.techquarium.com/hextank/thumbs/th_p4181561cs.jpg" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.techquarium.com/hextank/pictures/p4181562cs.jpg"target="_blank"><img src="http://www.techquarium.com/hextank/thumbs/th_p4181562cs.jpg" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.techquarium.com/hextank/pictures/p4181565cs.jpg"target="_blank"><img src="http://www.techquarium.com/hextank/thumbs/th_p4181565cs.jpg" border="0"></a>
Bending acrylic is really easy so long as you don't get in a hurry. You want to soften the material, not melt it and it's important to heat evenly across the width of the bend.
<a href="http://www.techquarium.com/hextank/pictures/p4181566cs.jpg"target="_blank"><img src="http://www.techquarium.com/hextank/thumbs/th_p4181566cs.jpg" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.techquarium.com/hextank/pictures/p4181569cs.jpg"target="_blank"><img src="http://www.techquarium.com/hextank/thumbs/th_p4181569cs.jpg" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.techquarium.com/hextank/pictures/p4181571cs.jpg"target="_blank"><img src="http://www.techquarium.com/hextank/thumbs/th_p4181571cs.jpg" border="0"></a>
And so it goes until we have 5 bends and 2 ends ready to trim and bond into the 6th corner of the hex tank.
<a href="http://www.techquarium.com/hextank/pictures/p4181572cs.jpg"target="_blank"><img src="http://www.techquarium.com/hextank/thumbs/th_p4181572cs.jpg" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.techquarium.com/hextank/pictures/p4181574cs.jpg"target="_blank"><img src="http://www.techquarium.com/hextank/thumbs/th_p4181574cs.jpg" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.techquarium.com/hextank/pictures/p4181575cs.jpg"target="_blank"><img src="http://www.techquarium.com/hextank/thumbs/th_p4181575cs.jpg" border="0"></a>
That's enough for now - it'll be home to a fish by the end of the weekend. To be continued.