Adhesive Recommendation; Metal to Mylar?

If you have a sign or screenprinting outlet near your location they will sell you the mirror mylar in single sheets about 24"x36 The cost will be around $3 per sheet. Peel off the backing and just stick it on. The stuff lasts almost forever even in harsh sunlight. It comes in all sorts of crazy colors and designs. I've been in that trade since 1979. You can buy it in Scotchbrite also.

Reply to
daniel peterman
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If you're worried about it, use some SS Cleaner made for cookware to clean/polish the edges.

The Phosphoric Acid in the cleaner will "passivate" the metal and re-polish it at the same time.

The same cleaner can also be used to remove the Calcium deposits produced by "Hard" water (if your local water supply is mineral-rich).

The potential for Calcium buildup is why I suggested using SS: it can be cleaned and re-polished so long as no abrasives are involved.

BTW, Not too long ago I "retired" our 100-gallon and 45-gallon fresh-water aquaria so that we could spend more time in our RV. [I never came up with a means of travelling with a bunch of live fish. ]

Reply to
RAM³

According to Jeff Walther :

The problem is that a bit of ferrous material transfers from the shear blade, and serves as a focal point for the start of rusting -- which then breaks through the chromium surface from the passivation.

The same problem comes from any other tool marks, including grinding with a wheel which was used on plain steel previously, or brushing with a steel wire brush.

None of this is from my personal experience -- just from reading discussions here in the past.

You *can* re-passivate it (acid dip, IIRC) after shearing, and you will be fine again.

Enjoy, DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

On Fri, 20 Oct 2006 13:57:17 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, Lew Hartswick quickly quoth:

Do you mean #90? No, I haven't even seen it...yet. It's about 30% more expensive than Super 77 and 77 works just fine for me, so I'll probably stick with it. I have a couple cases of it now. I couldn't return some of the other adhesives so I have one case of 2 others which didn't work in that area. I'll eventually use it all.

Bwahahahaha! Only $25/can at OfficeWorld, with "free" shipping!

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won't be buying a test can there.

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Reply to
Larry Jaques

Thank you for the tip. I did not think of that factor. The reason why I took your 77 suggestion and moved to the 90 (would not have found the 90, if I had not been looking at the 77, BTW) is that the 90 has a temperature tolerance up to 160F, while the 77 is rated to 105F

I will investigate that. Thank you.

Ah. looked at it. I was thinking in terms of a bench (?) shear that would do 48" lengths. I'm not sure if "bench" is the right word". One of the shears where the blade is as long as the cut and is levered down to cut the metal, similar to the table top paper cutters back in school.

That ($40 shear) is probably the way I'll have to go. I *know* that I can't cut anything resembling a straight or smooth line with a pair of hand snips.

That is the goal. I've seen the reflectors sold by AHSupply and they're nice. But for the dozen or so I'd like, I can't afford theirs, and they don't actually make the sizes I would like. I want to use T5 linear (and probably High Output) bulbs. They (AHSupply) tend to use the various Compact Flourescents with double or quad tubes.

Plus it is fun to take on projects like this. I often find that when I'm done tool costs and incidentals have driven the total cost to what a commercial product would have cost me, but I usually learn something in the process. Mostly, how to do tricks without proper/expensive tools. :-)

Don't get me wrong. I admire proper tools. I just usually can't afford them.

So, searching the news groups in rec.aquaria via dejanews (google groups) I found a couple of jpegs a fellow posted graphing his design for a segmented approximation of a parabolic reflector for two T8 bulbs. I plan to scale it for T5 bulbs (5/8).

Reply to
Jeff Walther

Very effective slosh baffles? Of course, carrying around 3/4 ton of water in the RV might affect your fuel efficiency. :-)

I "left" fish keeping through attrition for some years. I was down to one 20 gallon tank with water (the other empties are still around) and a platy. Now we have a 4 year-old so he and I are renovating the old tanks one at a time. Lighting technology has changed a lot since I was in it and I'm better equipped to understand things like color temperature and light intensity than I was back when. I've always been into live plants, sooooo light....

Thank you for the additional information. I am now torn between SS and mylar coated cheap metal. :-) I'm in no hurry so I can spend a while pondering the pros and cons. Besides, I still have a hundred 64 pin SIMMs for vintage computers to solder together. That'll keep me in projects for a few more weeks.

I just hope that Ebay seller doesn't go away while I vacillate. He'll charge $30 for the 17 shear cuts. That seems fairly reasonable to me, but I don't really know what anything should cost. But any time you set up to do something, it takes some time, even if the job goes fast after that.

Reply to
Jeff Walther

On Fri, 20 Oct 2006 22:49:22 -0500, with neither quill nor qualm, snipped-for-privacy@io.com (Jeff Walther) quickly quoth:

Interesting. 77 has historically been used for headliners in autos, and temps in there range up to 160F.

You won't even find a TWELVE INCH bench shear for that price.

It'll most likely take some practice with that to get straight lines, even with a guide.

Yeah, that's how most of us who like to work with our hands tend to learn, and we invariably have fun doing it that way! Don's $1,200 flashlight is a good case in point. We buy $1,000 tools to do a $5 job for us, but then we use the hell out of the new tool, so it all works out in the end.

I just bit the bullet and spent $215 on a Bosch Impactor. Normally I'd get by with the Ryobi, but I knew this tool will save me time and, more importantly, headaches. Drills are notorious for stripping screw heads, especially at the wrong time. The Impactor will drive a 3" deck screw through extremely dense wood with only the weight of the tool on it. It's amazing. I can probably strip an entire machine tool down to individual parts with one, too. It has a torque of 1,150 inch-pounds. For the money, I get an industrial quality drill motor, two 14.4v batteries, charger, and case.

Cool. Will you use the light over the dish, pointing down, and the dish behind the aquarium? What do the fish tell you that they prefer? ;)

Speaking of fish, I spotted an 18" steelhead swimming up the Applegate River yesterday at Applegate. It was with 2 buddies as they cruised along at 1 knot upstream in the 2' deep, pebble-bottomed, crystal clear waters. Too big for your aquarium, wot?

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Reply to
Larry Jaques

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