diy tan glass thickness question

[alane]

Hi all,
I am building my own tank, a large ank here in Ireland is expensive, a 55 gallon would set me back about 300 without stand or hood etc.. so it is cheaper to build my own.
Also all the glass manufactures use metric for glass thickness.

i've been trying to sort out the glass that is used, i built a test tank from 6.4 mm laminate glass. All the diy plans i saw used 1/4" glass and 6.3mm is 1/4" however the only glass i can get in that size is laminate. When the laminate is cut it moves and I get a lip, also the glass suppliers dont seem to impressed at all about the prospect of drilling this glass either as they say that the hole will start to "trickle" or something like that which i presume means that the it will crack/spread.. something generally bad. the other sizes i can get are 6mm non laminate 8mm laminate or 10mm non laminate the lip that results from the laminates moving makes for less surface area to bond and also gives me problem with the squarness of the tank.
The tank will be 17 inches high so it falls under the 18 inch limit that i have seen on all the sites for 1/4" .. moving to 10mm non laminate will make the tank 50% more expensive but for peace of mind it might be worth it.
So, as a question to anybody who has built their tank ,in DIY plans when they refer to 1/4" glass is it generally referring to 6.4 mm laminate ot 6mm non laminate.

Thanks in advance

Alan
Dublin
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[skipm]

From the way you explain your options I would go with the thicker, non-laminated glass. You should be able to get nice, clean edges and shouldn't have much trouble keeping the tank square. You should also be able to get this glass drilled with no problem if you desire. If the glass co. still won't drill and you have access to Dremel type tools with diamond bits you could drill it yourself, do a search here on glass drilling and you should find complete directions. If you do drill it yourself I would drill the glass before assembly in case something were to happen and it would also be easier to drill since you could position it easier. Good luck and I hope this helps, Skip

[alane]

skip,

cheers for the reply, the glass co. have no problem drilling non laminated glass.. it was mainly the thickness i was trying to establish.. the thicker glass is probably how i need to go though.
Cheers

Alan
Dublin
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