Yesterday morning I was home alone, and whilst looking for some arb something, I found a couple of 3mm glass sheets I got from a friend and immediately thought "Awesome! Let's build an enclosure! An awesome enclosure full of incredible awesome!" and immediately forgot what the hell I was looking for in the first place.

So, armed with nothing to do and everything I could possibly need; measuring tape, felt tip pen, glass cutter, paraffin, light grade sandpaper, masking tape, silicone and that bottle of Gluhwein I gave my wife for Mother's day, I set off to build the awesome!

Notes:
Glass cutter: Hardware shop guy tried to sell me most expensive glass cutter in the Southern Hemisphere with promises that with this tool, I'd be able to cut more glass than a supermodel at an Oscars after party. On my way to the till a guy just appeared. Like Sam Eliott in the Big Lebowsky and 'splained that the fancy cutter does everything it says on the box except cut glass. What I wanted was a cheap wet cutter and a bottle of paraffin. So I got that instead. He also explained the proper technique and stuff. Thanks caring random hardware store customer!

Design: I used Sketchup to get the fits and sizes. Starting on a Sunday and with the fever to DIY upon me meant I couldn't access a place to drill vent holes, so I decided to make 1mm slits in the bottom, and 2mm slits at the top for ventilation, because a thin long hole must allow the same air-flow as a bigger round hole right? Right?

Actual glass cutting: Super easy to get clean straight cuts. Covered the table with one of those soft fleece baby blankies. This one was dark blue. Lighter would have been better to see the pen marks on glass.

Sanding the edges: Frickin mission. Takes too damned long. Light grade sandpaper over small wooden block. It doesn't take much sanding to get rid of the sharp edges, but not much x8 per cut sheet (I used 12)= a hell of a lot.. And it's mundane as hell.

Silicone: Silicone sucks. It is a fact. I cannot express in words how much I hate the stuff. I cannot even make gutteral cave-man sounds that would possibly make you understand how evil that shit is.
It sticks to everything EXCEPT the glass. Once it sticks to something, it is basically there for keepsies. I spent a lot of time masking off the areas of glass close to the joints where I didn't want spillage. I got smudges on everything else. Plus, I waited for the stuff to be touch dry so the whole structure is somewhat stable before ripping off the masking tape. Of course the masking tape came off without the silicone, which meant trying to cut off the frilly loose booger bits with a small craft knife. Is a mess.

Next time I will sand the joining edges of the glass to give the wet silicone something to stick to, then add as little as possible to get the pieces of glass together, let it dry, then add the majority and ripp off the masking tape while it is all still wet. Hopefully less pita and smudges that way. Blue spirits works somewhat on the smudges. Excorcisms might too.

Blood: Goddayum we have a lot of it. We're like walking, talking water balloons filled with blood. Every little nick sends forth a little fountain of the red stuff to mix with the gluhwein and the silicone. Have to admit that blood on glass is somewhat cool in a Dexter kind of way, but if you work with glass you should really wear gloves.

Here is the final product. I didn't add the awesome lens-flares of awesome. I swear. Is just that awesome!

Very cool.
I haven't laughed that much for a while...

Btw, what do you think about silicone ?

Sent from my GT-N7100 a long time ago and far, far away.....

The more you work with silicone, the better you become and the easier it gets.

www.tarantulas.co.za/forum/tarantula-gen...0166-latest-creation

That was AWESOME.

Still wiping away the tears from all the laughing

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

Not bad at all.
What is your size of the tank?

Now I can see where the mess came from. :lol:

Some advise and pointers.

Reason why silicone did not stick to glass, you need to wash your glass. When glass comes from the factory or cut from the glass supplier it is covered with oil and dirt and not to mention paraffin when it gets cut and your paraffin you used to cut the glass. I wash all my glass and dry it off before I start sticking anything together.
I also pre-build all the tanks before I touch them with silicone, as silicone can be a bit oily and cause the tape not to stick.

When I say I pre-build my tanks, I use masking tape or silo tape.
I apply the silicone and then stick the tank together using the silotape/masking tape this makes the tank a solid cube, you could even use the tank as it stand. whistle2

Another method, or the method that gets used from the people who build fish tanks, they put a small layer of silicone between the glass and join it together first, this way your tank is strong and your tank is water tight.

The above method require 2 hands or some nice clamps.

Use a grinder or a belt sander to sand the sharp edges, it is faster and cheaper and saves your fingers from getting cut if you miss a couple of spots or don't do it properly or take it to the glass shop and ask them to erase it for you, should be about R5 a pain of glass.
They also use a belt sander, they have wet and dry sanders as well.

With building your tank you need to take time, you can't rush through the process of building tanks.
I normally cover the panels of glass with news paper, only leaving the edges where the silicone must join, something like you did.

This way, the silicone can mess on the news paper and not on the glass.
It also allows you to smear the silicone with out worrying about getting it on the glass.
It makes prep time longer, but when it is time for getting your tank ready it is so much more faster, you don't have to worry about cleaning (that much) your tanks out of silicone as the news paper has every thing on.

With pulling off the masking tape, you need to cut along the outline of the masking tape with a stanley knife of a blade, this will separate the tape and silicone and you wont have the tape tearing the silicone.
It is also better to wait a couple of hours days before you start pulling the masking tape off.
Pulling the masking tape while the stuff is wet is asking for more headaches than what the tank is worth, this also allows for a bigger mess with wet silicone on masking tape laying around on the floor, it also makes your hands full of the silicone.

I use a plastic putty scrapper that you buy from the part shop or paint shop, cost you R3, I then cut a corner off of the plastic scrapper.
I use this to apply and scrap the the excess silicone into a nice "triangle shape" it saves you on silicone and it looks neater, this is also where the masking tape/news paper comes in handy.

The cleaner you keep your hands, the less silicone you will have to clean up.

The more tanks you build the better you get.

Hehe! Thanks for the replies. I'm glad you had fun reading.

@Duan: You sir, are a silicone god!

@Jake: WxHxD is 200 x 400 x 250 for my big female S calceatum. Thanks for the tips! If I can get the silicone thing sorted and cut down on the sanding time I'l definitely give it another go. I did wash the glass with soap and water before assembly, which is why it was strange for the stuff not to stick. I think it liked my finger more.

I did the second method - the fish tank method with the glueing the panels together. Will try different next time with a spatula, not my finger. Also, next build will be on whiskey instead of hot wine.

Cheers!