Nasty hand-laid Tank Glue

[liquidreamer]

Looking at a 100g 5' long OceanView Tank.. awesome price, nice cuts on the glass etc. Can't seem to justify why I want to spend 300.00 more on the same size tank custom drilled by Oceanic.

Anyways - the only problem is that the bead on the insides of the tank are hand-laid vs. machine laid. There is access glue in like the bottom corner, mid right tank, up top, etc. It looks they had too much bead overflowing on their fingers and they left thicker edges where it should be tapered... it looks bad. I am sure that when it is full of water that it would be less noticible... but, I am a wierdo when it comes to these things.

LFS who's been there for 18 years or so and two of his employees say that the access glue does nothing for support - the only important part of the seem you cant touch and is the dead corner and in between the glass. When I asked if I could get a ruler or something as a guide and take a razorblad to it to make the bead width the equivelent to an oceanview machine-laid, he said sure. Now of course I am not going to dig the razor into the dead corner of this thing - just more like a quarter of an inch from where the sides meet - closer to the seam like the oceanic seams. What does everyone else think?

 

[liquidreamer]

No opinions on if this can be done or not?

 

[BillyZ]

take something with a square corner you can look at. Place the tip of your finger into the corner, but don't press it in. This is all the more silicon you need. Looking at it with my finger, this is a little less than 1/4" but if it's a "sloppy" silicon job to begin with... you might just want to leave it. riming it down may expose a gap, and thus create a leak.

Any silicon along the obtotm will be covered by your substrate. anything along the top you will not likely see as it will likely be hidden by the trim or any canopy you put on. The only silicon I would be worried about looking messy would be the silicon along the verticle seems.

JMO

 

[Fenix]

Just make sure that you dont break any seals when you are doing this.

I am suspicious that it does not look neat. If it is a well know manufacturer then it should look neat and not have any rough edges.

Maybe they broke a pane of glass when they were drilling it or something?

 

[liquidreamer]

Well, the outside glass/edges all look fine. I am just talking about extra/too much glue on the inside of the tank in the vertical seams. If you ever looked at an Oceanic, all you see is like a 1/4 inch of glue very finely evenly trimmed along the edge going down the glass almost unnoticible.... Now, this Oceanview which is nicely cut glass, etc.... but it just has too much glue used. Like...looks like I can cut some off of it. I wish I could get some pics.... maybe I will sneek my little cybershot in tomorrow evening and post some examples