Group glass drilling at my place this weekend

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DaveG99

Myself, Triggafish99, and masharp1126 plan on drilling a few tanks this weekend at my place. We have several tanks to drill and it should be a good learning experience for anyone interested in drilling glass. Anyone that wants to watch can PM me and I'll give you contact information. Drilling will commence around noon.

Of course this is contingent on us getting the club drill bits by then.
 
Triggafish99 said he had some hole saws for making templates. I have some scrap wood if we need it but I do not have hole saws. The saws need to be 1.5" and 1.75". If no one can get a hold of soem hole saw blades then I will go to Lowes and get a couple. I just need to know for sure.
 
Aww you can't do it next weekend? I want to wait on my bulkheads before I drill to make sure they fit . .well if everyone's using the same size bulkheads they I bet you can drill mine with the same holes too!

I'll go I'll go! Sunday's better for me!
 
Ok guys and gals. Its a go! Im picking up the glass drill bits from Matt this afternoon. Drilling will start around 12:15pm on Saturday at my place.

I will make sure my Ryobi batteries are all charged up and ready to go.
 
We had a successful day drilling. First of all I would like to recommend that anyone who tries to drill a tank get one of those plastic portable drill press things. That thing was a life saver! First we practiced on a 10 gallon and it went well. Slight chipping on the way out but it worked. The we did the two holes on my tank. Mine came out really good.

Then we put triggafish99's 55 gallon up on the stands and he started drilling it. After about a minute of drilling we heard a huge pop and the entire 4ft long pane of glass fell and shattered into tiny pieces. It was tempered. So we were wondering how strong tempered glass really is and Triggafish99 suggested we hit it with a hammer while its in the garbage can. I was shocked to see how strong tempered glass was. We didnt break it and we were smacking it with a hammer! There is video evidence of me hitting it.

After the tempered glass tank fiasco we got to drilling masharp's 40 breeder. It went well also. Overall a good day drilling and we learned a few things and had a little fun doing it.

I have a couple pictures but Ron (Triggafish99) has the video and lots of pics.
 
The first pic is a pic of me (drilling) and Mark (holding the guide). That little drill guide really made this much easier than trying to line everything up and keep it lined up while drilling.

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video of some drilling.....

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v192/t_ron99/?action=view&current=DrillingTank.flv




I saved the best for last. While drilling Ron's (triggafish99's) 55, we discovered it was tempered! It seemed like we were about 1/2 way through and Bam! The whole pane just crumbled into thousands of little pieces! I don't know if it scared Mark as much as it scared me, but it was one of those loud sounds that you'll never forget. I'm just glad we didn't get hurt. Here's the hole after we were done drilling it. Does anyone know what size bulkhead that will take???

BTW...the orange sticker on the bottom says "tempered glass, do not drill". We all figured that it referred to just the bottom...guess we were wrong.

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here is the video of me trying to break a tempered tank with a hammer..

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v192/t_ron99/?action=view&current=BeatingTank.flv
 
@DaveG99 wrote:
here is the video of me trying to break a tempered tank with a hammer.. said:
You can beat on it pretty hard and it will be OK. but just a small tap on the edge and it will shatter. That is why you can not drill it. When you get a little ways in the pressure on the inside circumference of the hole will cause it to shatter.
Click to expand...
 
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