How much should I expect to pay for an acrylic sheet? (1 Viewer)

[Reefahholic]

As always I usually end up doing my own research.

After talking to a friend I was completely bummed because he told me that none of these local acrylic/ plastic shops would sell to the general public. I was told that the only one who does is Sabic.

Well...I never believe anything just because somebody says so. Of course I have to find out for myself!

SHOCKINGLY 4 out of 4 places I called ALL sell to individuals and it's "not" just business to business only or huge orders.

Below I'll list prices from four different companies local to us here in Houston:


1. Sabic Plastics (very willing to sell & nice)
Cell-cast (unknown manufacturer)
1/4" 8x4' sheet $115
3/8" 8x4' sheet $206
Nothing currently in stock, ships from Dallas.
Freight $85

2. Regal Plastics (also very willing to sell and nice)
He quoted for Lexan, but I've heard this isn't good for aquariums. Here's the prices anyway.
Was in stock, spoke to Chase.
1/4" 8x4' sheet $160.54
3/8" 8x4' sheet $291

3. Professional Plastics (huge online store, professional, ready to do business)
Cell-cast (unknown manufacturer)
1/4" 8x4' sheet $150
3/8" 8x4' sheet $228
Local pick-up/ online orders and by phone/ I don't think you'll have to pay freight here.

4. A&C Plastics (very nice, knowledgeable, been in the game a longtime)
Spoke with John
Some of the biggest sheets in the business!
Cell-cast "Acrystar EG" (best for tanks)
1/4" 8x4' sheet $195.08
3/8" 8x4' sheet $250.08



Things l've been told so far:
Cell-cast can be with or without "crossed linked"
Cross-link is hard to glue
Most cell-cast that comes from China is junk for tank building or sump building. Exp. Chemcast, Trucast, etc. It bows a lot.
Acrystar EG is the best for Aquarium building. It is Cell-cast and not cross-linked. It's easy to glue/weld. The EG stands for "Easy Glue."
Was told Acrystar EG has been used for 10' tanks and that it's been sold to the guys on the "Tanked" tv show. Funny they're buying sheets out of Houston.


Please...if you guys learn anything post it up. Keep this thread going as we all continue to learn. I would love to build some Acrylic stuff. Saves a lot of money.

 

[steveb]

you didn't happen to see if any of them would cut and joint the edges for solvent welding?

 

[Reefahholic]

you didn't happen to see if any of them would cut and joint the edges for solvent welding?

No, but I can get back with you on that.

I'll be able to cut the acrylic for you soon if you like. I'm fixing to invest in a good router table. I know that a good clean cut is key. After that, you sand the edge with a fine grit sandpaper for a perfect bond.

I know two of them will cut it for you though.

 

[below radar]

I have a 4"x8' cylinder of acrylic if you want to buy it. I have no use for it.

 

[Reefahholic]

I want to fill this thread with good information regarding Acrylic fabrication. From Sumps and Overflow boxes to full blown 300-800 gallon tank builds.

So let's get started with a step by step tank build! I'll continue to update this thread as I learn new information in my acrylic journey.

Anything from best saw blades, routers, router bits, router tables, shank size, drill bits, building methods, solvents, which acrylic to use, dry times, etc. So follow along and learn with me. Contribute to the thread with any good accurate information you come across.


https://www.professionalplastics.com/professionalplastics/BuildingAnAquarium2.pdf

Shared via the Google app


Sent from my iPhone

 

[Reefahholic]

Polycast GP - Cast Acrylic Sheet

OVERVIEW Polycast general purpose cast acrylic sheet. General Purpose Acrylic Sheet Polycast general purpose acrylic sheet is a cost effective material used in the construction of a wide variety of products. FEATURES AND BENEFITS Typical Applications:Aquariums (Institutional & Commercial) Furniture P.O.P. Displays Ad-Specialty (Trophies, Plaques, & Incentives) Signage Fabricated Parts Requiring Optical Clarity Marine Components (Boat Windows, Doors, Hatches)

 

[Reefahholic]

Plexiglass - CAST Acrylic Sheets are offered in Clear, Black, White, Grey, Bronze, Blue, Red, Yellow, Green and more. Plexiglass applications include: picture frames, store displays, furniture, shelving, windows, barriers, shields, replacement glass and aquariums. Clear Plexiglass is optically transparent, unaffected by moisture, and offers a high strength-to-weight ratio, and can be easily heat-formed without loss of optical clarity. Prolonged exposure to moisture, or even total immersion in water, does not significantly effect its' mechanical or optical properties. Plexiglass Sheets (Acrylic sheets) may vary slightly by brand, but process technique is the more important factor (Cast or Extruded).

 

[Reefahholic]

JMK Displays Registered Member Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Darien Center, NY Posts: 11

Acrylic / Polycarbonate (Lexan) We been useing acrylic for about 21 years in our product production, we had just jumped into the aquariums, terrariums, sumps, and refugium business about 8 months ago and had found a few tips and trick by trial and error. We can say Lexan WILL scratch much easyer then acrylic. Acrylic comes in a few grades, we had talked to an acrylic Rep. about building tanks and for smaller tanks standard acrylic will work fine with proper glue, joint prep, and bonding. When you get into larger tanks 50 gallon + you should start looking into a "G" grade material, this is a cast material, better strangth and properties in the resin (more expensive then just acrylic). One thing with acrylic and proper equipment is you can make just about any style you can imagine. Drilling acrylic has a few tricks also, even if you have the special drilling tools and equipment, its not like just punching through a piece of 3/8" plywood, keeping your acrylic as cool as possible will help keep material stress down, and when heating for a bend use a lower heat setting for a longer heat time will eliminate some coner stress. Edge prep is another important part of building any water tight joint, keeping a clean edge for the proper adhisive to bond the 2 pieces IS the most important part of tank building. Also cool time and dry time are very important. We work with 24 hours as a rule for each step, bending and bonding B-4 we polish or routing excess material. Proper tools does help, but the knolage of these materials and steps helps also. Get some smaller samples of material you will be useing and practice with that, checking for heat bend time, proper glue joints, drilling, Etc... " Carpenters Rules " Measure twice Cut once Hope this helps for you DIY's, http://www.jmkdisplays.homestead.com...gium001MED.jpg Signed: Jay M Kaye Of; JMK Displays __________________ JMK Displays

 

[Reefahholic]

#29 09/25/2002, 01:15 PM

NAGA Premium Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Maryland Posts: 392

Use Cell Cast Acrylic.........my personal preference is Polycast brand. My 750gallon tank is made with it and I have worked with that brand for 10yrs. It is more expensive but, I think it is worth it. If you hold it up into the light comparing it to Chemcast brand you will see that typically the Polycast is clearer. YMMV Lexan.....NAH. don't bother......not going to work well for you......too long of an explanation to put here but, don't bother. Check with others if you want that know acrylic that can explain it to ya in person. NAGA

 

[Reefahholic]

The following information below is from FLOYD R TURBO!



Ok so those are a few examples of the kind of things I've built. I posted those just to show my personal experience level with acrylic fabrication. The assembly techniques required for complicated builds have all been a learning process, and while I haven't learned it all, I've learned enough to answer just about any question you can throw at me.

The short list of things I haven't done, but have a good level of knowledge on:

Bonding 2 sheets together end-to-end (butt joint) using Weld-on #40 or #42
Acrylic thickness over 3/4" (I don't build tanks, I am a strong believer in glass tanks)

Now, to go into the process itself. I'll break this into a series of posts, because there are a lot of things to take into consideration.

There is a lot of information out there on the interwebz and a lot of YouTube videos showing you how to build a full size tank out of 1/4" acrylic with saw-cut edges, capillary action welding, and black electrical tape. Ignore that %$#@ unless you enjoy a house full of water. Just because some guy in a video did it doesn't mean you should. I'll show you how to avoid the mistakes that are most common. Hint: everything in the first sentence is a big mistake.

The first thing to cover is material.

Plexiglas is a term like Kleenex. Kleenex is tissue, but not all tissues are Kleenex. Plexiglas is a brand name, not all acrylic is Plexiglas.

There are also different types of plastics, the most common ones you will find are Acrylic (extruded and cell cast) and Polycarbonate (commonly called Lexan, though that is also a brand name).

Polycarbonate is not something the average DIYer will be able to use. First, it is "grabby", meaning if you try to cut or route it, it can bind and throw the piece. This is generally bad. So my advice is to just avoid using it.

Acrylic types are generally Cell Cast and Extruded.

Extruded is exactly how it sounds, it is formed by extrusion and therefore you can usually see the lines on the surface of the material. This makes it less "show quality" but it is still fine for many small applications, as well as sumps and small frag tanks. Extruded acrylic sheets are typically masked with plastic, but sometimes are masked with paper. It is generally more flexible and will bow more easily, so if you have a sump with many baffles and there is not a long open section, extruded can be just fine. For sumps with large open sections, you will want to bump up a size (or two) which usually makes it the same price as using thinner cell cast. Not for use with full-size display tanks. I personally use it very sparingly, if at all.

Cell Cast is formed either in vertical molds or flat molds. In either case, you will usually end up with variations in thickness within the sheet itself. A vertically molded sheet can be slightly thicker at the bottom. A horizontally molded sheet can be thicker on the edges and thinner in the middle. Usually this is pretty difficult to notice unless you cut a sheet up into equal sized pieces and then stack them up in 2 stacks side by side - then, it becomes very clear. It's worth mentioning because it's not always possible to get everything dead on exact with a micrometer when working with acrylic. Fortunately, acrylic is pretty forgiving as long as you follow a good preparation and assembly procedure. Cell Cast acrylic is almost always paper masked.

The second thing to cover is brand: this is my recommended list in order of the best material to use

#1 is Spartech Polycast. This is what you see being used pretty much exclusively by ATM and a few others. Polycast is imperial thickness, meaning, when you order 1/2", the thickness is actually 0.500". It is also (I believe still) made in America and is wicked expensive. So, for the average hobbyist, this is usually out. But also, you mainly woudl consider this when building a tank and not a sump or an ATO box, etc. It comes in oversize sheets, 50" x 100" instead of 48" x 96", so it's easier to make an 8' tank be truly 8' long. You can also get in 10' sheets. $$$$

I believe most Polycast is cell cast. It is also the brand that is used to make fighter jet canopies (at least it was last I heard)

#2 is Plexiglas brand. Made by Arkema, you might also see the name "Altuglas" on it. Thickness is metric, so when you ask for 1/4", you get 0.236", 3/8" is 0.354", 1/2" is 0.472", you get the idea. Comes in 48" x 96" sheets, but usually they're slightly more (like 46.125 or 46.25, etc)

Plexiglas cell cast is generally called "Plex-G" or sometimes "GP". It has a paper mask with green print on one side. There is also a generic cell cast version which has a paper mask and no print on it, but it is still an Arkema brand, sometimes referred to as "General Purpose" or PMACS (or maybe PMAX, sounds the same). Not necessarily the same as "GP" so you have to be careful.

Plexiglas extruded is generally Plex-MC, but different suppliers have different terms. It also has a printed paper mask.

I use almost exclusively General Purpose/PMACS Arkema Cell Cast, but nothing I make is "show" quality. No display tanks. PMACS is cheaper and is almost exactly the same as Plex-G. It's kind of like when a PC processor manufacturer makes a dual-core and quad core chip. They actually only have one line, and if a quad core chip has one or two cores that don't pass, they turn them off and presto! Dual core chip without a second factory line (which is why you can unlock cores in an AMD chip). Not an exact parallel and maybe not 100% technically correct but that is the concept. Arkema plain-labels sheets to compete with other generics. They're actually made in the same factory, same line. There's just no warranty on it.

Sidebar on warranty: warranty only matters if you buy $100k of material from them a year. Then, and only then, will they comp you if you find a flaw after the tank is built and you tear off the mask. For the average hobbyist, you would (literally) have to remove the entire mask and examine the uncut sheet for flaws in order to qualify for a warranty replacement. Then if there were no flaws, you would have to put the mask back on to work with the material (or re-mask with a new mask). Good luck with that! The Plex-G warranty is as valuable as dog poo in a box to the average hobbyist. Actually that goes for just about any acrylic manufacturer warranty.

#3 is Acrylite brand. Made by Cyro, also metric. This used to be one of the solid standby brands, then a few years ago most of it started getting made in China and it was "off the list" for a while. However I know a few builders you use it and like it just fine still. Thicker material (over 1") is still made in Germany I believe.

Call Cast is Acrylite-GP. Extruded is Acrylite-FF. Both have paper masks with red print. I am not aware of a generic cell cast version of Acrylite.

That's really it. There are others but I don't recommend using them for pressure vessel applications.

If you are building something that is not required to hold water in the same manner, then just about any brand will work fine. What I mean is things like a filter sock holder, probe holder, or a drop-in anything.

The thickness of the material needed is a direct function of the water column height. That's another post.
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Last edited: Dec 7, 2015​

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[Reefahholic]

Ya'll don't get me going on something....I don't play. You better believe when it comes time to execute my overflow box and new sump....It's gonna be well planned and done right!

More info to come. Hang on for the ride! We gonna learn acrylic fabrication and make some nice stuff guys and gals!

 

[reeftopia]

Nice work reefaholic

 

[Cody]

I'll be tagging along and helping with input where I can. I have been working with a router table and acrylic for a while now. It's really fun to work with! Having said that, you really did your homework, Jared! Keep up the insight.

 

[Reefahholic]

Nice work reefaholic

Thanks man. I know a lot of us would like to play around with some DIY acrylic projects. I'll keep you guys updated.

 

[Reefahholic]

I'll be tagging along and helping with input where I can. I have been working with a router table and acrylic for a while now. It's really fun to work with! Having said that, you really did your homework, Jared! Keep up the insight.

Thanks, I appreciate anybody's input on any information about acrylic or anything I may have wrong. I gotta start somewhere. Just give me time and I'll be able to tell you a lot more.

Right now I'm focused on what equipment to use (blades, bits, routers, saws, etc.). Also trying to pinpoint the best acrylic on the market for various applications (tank building of any size, sumps, overflow boxes, etc.).

After figuring a few things out, will focus more on cutting the acrylic using various methods, prepping the edges, and finally solvent welding.

 

[Reefahholic]

To be honest, it's kinda like building a glass tank.

The most important thing is prepping the edges. Like glass, the edges need to be clean, even, and completely smooth for the perfect bond.

The pin method seemed very odd to me at first, but now that I understand the concept somewhat, I feel confident I can do it fairly well.

 

[chris85]

Hey man just got done reading and if I have time this afternoon I will try and put up some of the router bits and saw blades that I use. I didn't know you were doing a professional thread. I thought it was going to be a diy acrylic thread. I will try and post some tips and tricks when I have a little bit more time.

 

[Reefahholic]

Hey man just got done reading and if I have time this afternoon I will try and put up some of the router bits and saw blades that I use. I didn't know you were doing a professional thread. I thought it was going to be a diy acrylic thread. I will try and post some tips and tricks when I have a little bit more time.

Ok sounds good. I wouldn't say professional thread. I just like to do things the most accurate and best way possible. Acrylic isn't something you want to take short cuts with. It's crystal clear and bad seams will be very visible. I think that the proper tools play a huge role with work quality as with any job. So I'll be trying to find the best tools for the job.

 

[steveb]

What I picked up from James and/or Floyd R Turbo over on RC
Solvents --
dichloromethane if your into mixing your own
MCBond if your not -- not cheap Acrylic cement, MC-Bond | Polysciences, Inc.

add Glacial Acetic Acid - to slow evaporation

I have the ratios saved somewhere but can't seem to locate the info right now...

 

[Reefahholic]

Very nice! Thanks for the info Steve.

Keep us posted!