Where to purchase acrylic supplies.

[Marc118]

Is there a good site for custom cut ( or aquarium friendly ) sizes of acrylic sheet as well as acrylic construction materials such as the acrylic cement?

[dskidmore]

Check your phone book, you might have a plasitcs supply place near you. Mail ordering custom cut acrylic is going to get expensive on the shipping if the piece is at all sinificant in size.

Originally Posted by dskidmore

Check your phone book, you might have a plasitcs supply place near you. Mail ordering custom cut acrylic is going to get expensive on the shipping if the piece is at all sinificant in size.

I will have to agree with dskidmore. I priced some acrylic on a website and the shipping was horendous. Getting full sheets of lexan, 4'x8', would of costed me an extra couple hundred bucks. They wanted to deliver it on a semi construction style. The plastic company in town would be the best bet. If they dont have it in stock they will be glad to order it for you most of the time. The cement your refering to is called Weld-On. Its an acrylic solvent, kind of like pvc solvent, works the same way but designed for acrylic or lexan. Again the plastic company will sell this to. Otherwise if ordering it over the internet they will charge you extra on shipping for hazardous material. HTH

Ps. The Weld-On requires special applicator tools to use. Strongly suggest getting more than one. The needles on them occasionally get gloged from the melted plastic and trying to poke them clean doesn't allways work.

[Marc118]

Ok the local plastic supply quoted me at $7 a sq.f for 3/8" and $10 for 1/2". How does that sound?

You have got to be kidding me on those prices. A sheet of .25 (1/4) was only like $75.00 at the plastic store I used to go to. And If I remember right a sheet of .375 (3/ was like $150.00. I never got a price for .5 (1/2) just because I never had the use for it, or rather the ambition to make anything that required the use of .5. Those prices are about a year old, I still can't believe its that expensive now.

I did look on the internet for you though and found what looks like to be a good source for plastic, I still can't believe those prices, that is a little cheaper than what you were quoted. You'll have to be the one sitting down for the shipping quote though! I can only imagine how much thats gone up!!!

http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/default.asp

Heres another one that I did order some drill bits and Weld-On threw a while back.

http://www.rplastics.com/index.html

[Marc118]

Even dirt is expensive in Cali

[noncentric]

Originally Posted by Marc118

Even dirt is expensive in Cali

Not sure what part of CA you are in, but if you're in NorCal then you could try this place : http://www.tapplastics.com/

They have several brick-and-mortar locations in NorCal.

Good luck!

[Serge]

As mentionned above, a good start is yo check your local phone book for plastic suppliers/workshops. On-line places, such as:

This one is where I order various miscelaneous items, such as nylon screws and wingnuts:

http://www.usplastic.com/

Other places, like:

http://www.savko.com

http://www.mcmaster.com/

http://www.aquaticeco.com/

HTH