Glass cutters?

[Jordan55]

Hey everyone.

I am basically done with my canopy to they nanocube. It will house around 50 watts of PC. But I need to find a glass dealer that can cut a lid for me. If I use egg crate, water evap will soak up into the fixtures. So I need to have a closed top.

Or would it be better to find a way to put a piece of plexy glass on the actual canopy. I think that way, more gas exchange will occur, and I wont have to lift another piece when feeding.

What do you think?

[thebrian]

Will your lights not fit in the canopy as is? I've had 72w of light in the stock canopy before, but you need to add fans to the other 2 vents also if you want to do this (fans in all 4 vents). The plastic splashguard will hold up. On the other hand, you could go to Thomas Glass which is on Garden Road just off of Indianola (on the east side of Indianola). They've cut glass for me twice for my cube (because i broke the first one), and they considered it such a small job they didn't even charge me either time (although I'm not saying you should expect it to be free - be ready to pay just in case - it wouldn't be more than $10 though). I had my glass cut to the outside rim of the cube though. I took my hood in for them to trace. If you want them to do the inside edge so it sits in the trim, you'll probably need to bring in the actual cube.

~Brian

[szwab]

if you are loking for 1/4 inch then go to lowes, HD or a local hardware store.

[daveisrael]

Be careful using plexiglass. I made a top for a 75 once using some of the 1/4" plexiglass from lowes and the heat from the lights (which was only 40 watts of NO flourescents) and/or condensation from the tank caused the plastic to warp over time and the edges of the plastic came up off of the tank. I ended up going to a glass cutting place to have a piece cut anyway. If your piece is small enough though you may be ok.

[Buckeye ME]

I've been using acrylic for things lately. Stop by American Plastics on 5th Ave in Grandview and they have a huge scrap table right there. It's $2.00/lb. You can usually find scraps 4-6' long of different thicknesses, sometimes up to 11 inches wide. A strip like that would usually only be 2 lbs. If you don't have a table saw or something good to cut with, you can buy a small metal handheld acrylic cutter the for like $3. It's not easy to use for thick parts but it has done the job for me since I have no real tools.

[Jordan55]

My stepdad and I built the canopy so it would look nice and I could house more wattage without a problem or moding the hood for them to fit.

Really, I would like some how add the acrylic to the bottom of the canopy so it would be easy getting the lid off and on. I was afraid of it warping. It happened to me awhile ago on the 55. But a lot of light fixtures I see have acrylic shields. I just need to find the right kind.

[jakano]

dave is right about that lowes 1/4" stuff it did the exact same thing to me.

[Jordan55]

Yea I figured it would. However I have seen 1/4 inch that does bend. Like on the CORALIFE PC fixtures I had. I wonder if Lowes would know how heavy duty they are, and if they could withstand light heat?

I don't feel like going out and testing a bunch of different kinds of acrylic, and I also don't feel like buying 3/4 inch acrylic.

The glass idea is starting to get on my better side:(