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Originally Posted by uncleL
Wow! Sweet
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sfsuphysics
That said, your construction skills look fabulous, and I'm sure this project is going to be a work of art when you're finished.
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Thanks. I hope when it's finished it looks as good as the picture I have in my head.
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Originally Posted by sfsuphysics
Are the corners welded though? Or is each linear piece in some way bolted together?
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To me, they appear to be welded but I honestly can't say for sure. Since the top of the tank is wrapped in cling wrap, I can't get a good picture and it's hard to see exactly what's going on without sticking your head in the tank. The frame has corner pieces, but from the outside I can't see how they are held in place. I definitely didn't see any bolts sticking down through, but couldn't see where it was welded either. If you could get in touch with Custom Aquariums, they would probably explain it all to you.
Progress update for this week - I decided to skip hanging the door. I'll do that when someone is here helping me. I'm still making a ton of dust in my garage, so I couldn't stain the door anyway. Plus, the temperatures dropped and it's been snowing
. Instead I put about 3/4 of the ceiling back up. When I started this project, I had a hard time getting everything exactly where I wanted it. When my house was built, they didn't do a very good job of making sure everything was square/plumb. So, I didn't have very many good reference points to work from and putting the tank on a 45 degree angle to the rest of the room complicated matters. Now that the ceiling is going in and because it is essentially a bunch of parallel lines, I can see where I was off by a degree or two in some places. Nothing major, and you can't tell unless you break out a tape measure but it's off a little. One exception to that was the door frame that I put in. It shifted when I was screwing it in place. I knew it shifted but didn't notice until tonight how far it had moved. When I put the ceiling in, it was clear that the door wasn't going to be square to the wall.
I doubt too many people will be looking at the ceiling as they go through the doorway, but I couldn't leave it like that. Plus it seemed like an easy thing to fix. So, I started removing the screws. Of course, one couldn't be removed. I don't own a Sawzall, so I had to cut it with a hacksaw. Before anyone asks, no I'm not against buying new tools and this would have been a great opportunity. The problem is I love cutting stuff with a Sawzall. When I was a teenager, I would walk around with one and cut stuff up for no particular reason. To me, there's just something fun about using one. Since I like my stuff in one piece, I've resisted the urge to buy one. OK enough with that detour, so I finally cut through the screw and grabbed my big hammer. To my dismay, the wall wasn't really moving. Basically, I've cut everything to fit and I"m building this room around my tank. Because it was made to fit tightly the wall was too long to move the 1-1.5" needed to make it square. So out came the hacksaw again. I had to trim 1/8" off so that it could slide into place. It sounds easier than it was for some reason, but after about 1.5 hours I finally had the wall where I wanted it and the gap is much better now.
I should be able to wrap up the ceiling this week and then move on to drywall.
-Ivan