Timfish Posted March 1 Share Posted March 1 I'm working on a project and need to put a large hole in the side of a tank. I have a 5" diamond bit that will work but was kinda thinking a square hole would work better. I did a setup a long time ago where I did a rectangular cut out in a top corner for an overflow. @KimP 150 had also had small rectangular cutout for the overflow. But I want one in the middle which obviously puts a great deal more stress on a tank. Since aesthetics wouldn't be an issue I was thinking maybe glass tiles and glass strips could be used to reinforce the glass. So here's my first attempt: So far so good. And failure! First and second went fine but the third one three cracks appeared as the bit broke through. One going under the glass reinforcement all the way to the edge of the glass. Well, might as well see what happens finishing up the other hole and cuts. 😕 First two cuts with a cordless circular saw and masonry blade. And here's the finished hole. One mistake was not cleaning out the silicone. While the masonry blade would cut though it easily enough it made it hard to aligned the blade with the glass strips. The last cut ended up jagged as a result. One note on the glass tiles used. A plastic or epoxy coating is put over the painted side of the tile. I attempted to scrap it off one and it was pretty difficult. I left one out to weather to see what might happen and it took a couple months but the coating didn't hold up to sunlight and started to flake off. For my second attempt I'll need to figure out hoe to take off the coating and paint so I'm dealing with a clean glass surface. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Grog Posted March 2 Share Posted March 2 Looking at that made my teeth hurt. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mFrame Posted March 3 Share Posted March 3 Did you try using a glass cutter and just scoring and snapping like traditionally done when cutting glass? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted March 4 Author Share Posted March 4 No, that won't work on a tank that's already built. (I guess I should have mentioned I'm putting holes in existing tanks in my first post. 😏) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted April 2 Author Share Posted April 2 2nd attempt, no issues cutting the glass but I did torque the hole saw drilling one hole. That's a problem I've had drilling the thinner glass on smaller tanks. It seems to happen just as the bit starts to cut through the glass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Grog Posted April 4 Share Posted April 4 Maybe using a drill press instead of a hand drill, or a wooden jig, to prevent the torquing and assumed slight binding at the end of the cut? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted April 4 Author Share Posted April 4 It would be awkward using a drill press on a tank and messy running water to keep the bit cool. I've used wood jigs in the past and they're certainly easy to make but there's been enough of a gap with diamond bits there can still be a bit of an angle. Drilling from both sides has given the best results but there's no room to do that in this tank. Drilling real slow also works better but I get impatient :/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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