$50 craiglist 225 tank/cabinet/canopy DIY refurbish
- Thread starter CWO4GUNNER
- Start date
I put one final coat (3 total) of polyunsaturate on the inside and outside of the canopy becasue unlike the cabinet these wood canopies being above the water and getting all the evaporation and power head spray takes a serious tole (rot) on the wood over just a few years, and I don't want to have to refinished it ever again.
After that I turned my attention to the tank seals to inspect their softness inside and finally they hard cured all the way through. So I decided to try an idea I had to trim them up strait since using a spoon really oversize them too much. So I took a long strait edge, piece of rigid angle PVC and used it to lay vertically along and over the amount of silicone I wanted to trim off vertically, then used a new sharp razor to cut a strait vertical line using the strait edge as a trim guide. Then I use a freshly razor sharpened wood chisel and plow-cut horizontally away from the the corner and main body of silicone and inch at a time until it was all gone. One whole corner took me all of about 15 minutes and it worked great leaving a fairly clean line seal that is 1/2 inch wide on each side or 1 inch wide and 1/4 inch thick. Hope that does the trick.
Tomorrow Ill finish all 4 corners and the bottom seal only where the seal can be seen beyond the bottom trim facing out, but I wont touch the bottom portion that cant be seen no matter how ugly it is LOL.
So here is what the seal looks like before and after the trim. After that it will be time to start making preparations for water testing. Bringing the cabinet outside again and finding a level spot on the driveway and shimming the cabinet to perfect level then placing the aquarium on top with a 1 inch poly pad underneath. At that time Ill probubly place the canopy and glass covers on top as well to see what it all looks like before my hart starts pounding as the water fills up the tank!
:hang:
After that I turned my attention to the tank seals to inspect their softness inside and finally they hard cured all the way through. So I decided to try an idea I had to trim them up strait since using a spoon really oversize them too much. So I took a long strait edge, piece of rigid angle PVC and used it to lay vertically along and over the amount of silicone I wanted to trim off vertically, then used a new sharp razor to cut a strait vertical line using the strait edge as a trim guide. Then I use a freshly razor sharpened wood chisel and plow-cut horizontally away from the the corner and main body of silicone and inch at a time until it was all gone. One whole corner took me all of about 15 minutes and it worked great leaving a fairly clean line seal that is 1/2 inch wide on each side or 1 inch wide and 1/4 inch thick. Hope that does the trick.
Tomorrow Ill finish all 4 corners and the bottom seal only where the seal can be seen beyond the bottom trim facing out, but I wont touch the bottom portion that cant be seen no matter how ugly it is LOL.
So here is what the seal looks like before and after the trim. After that it will be time to start making preparations for water testing. Bringing the cabinet outside again and finding a level spot on the driveway and shimming the cabinet to perfect level then placing the aquarium on top with a 1 inch poly pad underneath. At that time Ill probubly place the canopy and glass covers on top as well to see what it all looks like before my hart starts pounding as the water fills up the tank!
:hang:
beautiful work!! i finally got around to messin with my 240 and to my surprise, i removed the bottom trim and was pleasntly surprised that there were 2 bottom panels, one inset and the original capped ( the cracked one). so it appears that the tank was already repaired. im goin to just go ahead and reseal everything and pray that there are no leaks!
Start a thread and post some pics, id like to see it if possible. Since your going to reseal the inside anyway consider taking advantage of the opportunity to seal over the exposed crack on the inside and possibly lay a 1/4 inch pane 4 inches wide of left over cut glass you can buy cheap and have cut at Lowes or Home Depot. This not so much to seal the crack as much as stabilize the the brake from sifting creating shards that can cut you and or create a pressure point on the capped glass underneath.
Have you ever considered using blue painters tape and taping off the all the seams and then silicone it . Remove the tape and it's done ?? No trimming . I've done reseals that way and it eliminates the trimming.
That works - I did a seal like that in the past one time - I forgot about it till you mentioned it.
I thought about it and if the tank wasn't so large and I wasn't working alone that day I might have gone for it. But I pictured trying to lay and spoon 26 feet of silicone before it skinned and then trying to remove 16 tape strips that were between 2 and 6 feet long, all before the silicone skinned and would tear the main seals as the tape was pulled, and removing them around the tank brace without having them tangle and hit stick the sides of the glass anyway. A small 60 gallon without a tank brace no problem, but this was just to daunting as it was for one person as is usually the case.
In any case removing the excess was much easier then I expected mostly because you not working on corners and edges. But yes if I had 2 experienced fast people I would have tried it (maybe).
In any case removing the excess was much easier then I expected mostly because you not working on corners and edges. But yes if I had 2 experienced fast people I would have tried it (maybe).
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