Drilling holes in your tank

[Orient Master]

Ok i know this has gone around before but i bought a cheap ten gal to practice on but i havent bought any bits yet and trying to find the ones on E-bay that are the right size.

Are these the right ones????

Drill bits

I mean i know the person on e-bay says it them but are the sizes right??

becuase i would like to drill a 20 gal, 10 gal, and in the future maybe a 55 gal with the proper sized holes to get the most flow through the tank as posible.

Does any of that make any sence.

Because i have read that a 1" bulk head has pretty much about 600 gph flow. i don't know the rest.

[Casey]

Those will work great Chris go for it and good luck,the 10 gal's are the hardest to drill because the glass is super cheap and thin.

[Orient Master]

so if i can drill a 10 gal then i "should" be able to drill a 20 gal or 55 gall.

[tdwyatt]

Geoff is going to drill one of my 135 gallon tanks at the TRT picnic this weekend, I will take lots of pix and post his technique in a thread.

[Geoff]

yep, those 10's are a bugger. for 10's i almost suggest using the dremel method instead of the hole saw method.

yep, charging up the batteries now for the big holes this weekend. Tom- do you have a corded drill?

G~

[tdwyatt]

Originally Posted by Geoff

yep, charging up the batteries now for the big holes this weekend. Tom- do you have a corded drill?

G~

yep, a Dewalt 3/8" super turbocharged, titanium/germanium enriched, highpowered 5000 drill by BINFORD tools!

VVVRRROOOMMMMMMM! VROOMMM VROOMMM!!!


More POWER!!!

[afbengochea]

http://stores.ebay.com/THK-Diamond-Tools
I got mine here. nice and cheap

[thekid55]

i also got my hole saw from THK tools. i highly suggest looking at my need help drilling thread. it will help alot.
10 gal tanks are not that hard. i like them cause they only take a secound to get through

[Casey]

Originally Posted by Orient Master

so if i can drill a 10 gal then i "should" be able to drill a 20 gal or 55 gall.

No doubt!

[thekid55]

just keeep drilling 10 gallons untill you stop seeing this. id order 2 hole saws 1 to practice on another for the tank.

http://thereeftank.com/forums/showth...light=drilling

[Orient Master]

Ok so i tried drilling the ten gal.

I used a rotozip instead of a dremel. works the same.

Would of have rather used to drill bits but i am going to order thouse on ebay soon. i thought a ten gal only costs $10 i could practice on this until i get the real thing and have some experience beneath the belt.

I got the holes drilled. Yeah the first one took a long time because i was going very slow because i have never done thins before. the second one went faster made a little crack in the edge of the glass. thought the bulk head would clamp around it and hold it in place. Wrong!!!! THE BULK HEAD JUST CRACKED IT THE REST OF THE WAY. dissapointed i went a head and put in the other bulk head and cracked that hole too. Think that i just overtightened the bulk head. heck the glass is really thin. just the moving of the tank back and forth hooking up the tubing and everything probably would have cracked it anyway.

At least i did get two holes before it cracked and with the not so great tool. Just think what i can do with the right tool now.

I will post pics in a bit. They are still on the camera and i gota clean up my mess before i go inside and download them to the laptop.

[thekid55]

id say a dremel is not a good idea. its hard to drill the holes even and also to get a perfect round hole. order a hole saw ( THK tools on ebay is great ) and try another 10 gal or another side of the cracked one.
as far as the bulkhead's. only hand tight and a little turn of the wrench. just a little not alot and i even used silicon on the outside of the bulkhead.

[tdwyatt]

or for a 10 ga app, just use acrylic to replace the pane of the tank...

[Orient Master]

Well lets try again. I got a post ready with pics and all but the laptop stoped responding and it killed my window so i have to try again.

First pic is what i wantd it to look like.


The big bad first crack. Boohoo oh well it's just the practice tank any way.


This is the rest of the cracks

[tdwyatt]

sometimes, drilling glass with carbide tips in particular, or diamond studded grinding bits requires that you build a dam of clay around the area to be drilled and fill it with a lubricant/cooling fluid in order to drill the glass without cracking it, even for soft glasses. This can make the difference between the results you have (with a multitude of breaks) and a nice smoothed bored hole.

Sometimes, technique is everything.

Interesting links:

http://books.google.com/books?id=5DI...RRmU_yd8&w=575


http://books.google.com/books?id=-Ll...cU#PRA1-PA5,M1