Easy way to enlarge a hole in an acrylic sump?

[husker267]

Bought a well built sump, but I need to enlarge the hole for my external pump from 1" to 1.5" for a bulkhead. I don't have a drill bit that large, but do have a dremel. Keep in mind the sump is already al put togther.

[coralreefengr]

We used a dremel on a piece of acrylic to make our internal overflow. We've also used hole saws on acrylic. Only complaint about working with acrylic is that it gets pretty smelly when it heats up during cutting.

["Umm, fish?"]

Hole saws don't work so well once you have a hole unless you go for a much larger diameter. I'd guess that the dremel is your best bet. I just had to enlarge some holes through wood flooring. The hole wouldn't work so I had to bust out with a hand file. I hope it doesn't come to that for you!

[killercoral]

I have a few suggestions. I wouldn't use a dremel ( no offense to anyone but I have never had good results) . Especially if it is not a variable speed model when you put a dremel to acrylic spinning at 30,000 RPM it tends to melt quickly. You will almost certainly not get a clean cut. I tried to cut teeth for an overflow once with a dremel and it was so ugly and jagged that I didn't even want to use it. If you have the tools available I would do the following.

1. Use a router with a circle jig template to lay over the existing hole and just trace around it.

2. Use a Roto Zip, again with the circle template. I have heard many people have had great success with the Roto Zip but I personally do not have experience with this method.

If you don't have a circle jig you can make one by using a hole saw in a piece of thin wood and then lay that over the acrylic and trace.

[griff]

The router with a circular jig is probably the best bet. If you don't have that, then I would use hole saw in the following manner:

Clamp a piece of wood behind the panel with the current hole. This will give something for the center bit of the hole saw to go into, guiding the rest of the cutting. Go slow and don't apply a lot of pressure and you should be OK. In my experience, this gives a cleaner cut than a dremel.

~griff

[ONEMANBAND]

hole saw is the easy way to go, above poster is correct about difficult to do in wood or tough medium, but acrylic is not very hard to drill

[killercoral]

Griff great suggestion I forgot about that method when there is already a hole drilled works well!

[dajum]

If it is too hard to clamp a board. Just cut a hole in another piece of acrylic and then cement that to the current hole. and away you go. Takes some time to let it dry. But if you aren't in a hurry it works great.

Dave

["Umm, fish?"]

Great suggestions! I wished I'd posted to you guys before I started with the hand file! I normally like that ind of work, but I was inside my cabinet working through the hole I'd cut in it and I just tore my hand to bits.

[husker267]

Thanks for the feedback. Looks like I have a pretty good idea of what I need to do.