Very cool Ben.....I was following you to a degree, and will have to ask that question. The thought had crossed my mind about stress, just haven't been able to really determine if there would actually be any stress point in that area. I only question the "stress" because the panel lip will still have a support of almost 2" all the way around, same as using a straight panel where the "so called" stress in my mind would be on that 2" lip. Either way the acrylic panel would be overkill in the hope of going with thicker acrylic panel would reduce the stress load. The radius of the cutout would no way interfere with the installation of the panel. Either the glass or acrylic panel wouldn't technically make direct contact with the epoxied surface of the tank. It is sitting on tiny spacers to ensure the silicone or Dow 795 adhesive is equal all around the perimeter ensuring a proper seal. With the acrylic it would be a pressure seal vs being bonded to the tank as glass would be with the silicone.
As far the gelcoat "color pigment" your actually somewhat limited, but like I said I remembered the tech guy at West saying of another option they found to tint the epoxy. I did try finding it at the local craft stores around right after he told me about it, but the craft places didn't carry a wide range of colors. The bad thing about actually gelcoat pigment is that the color range is very limited, and the basic colors are white, black, red, green, yellow, brown, and dark blue......The dark blue is dark.......
I tossed and turned last night trying to decide what I want to do as far as the background.....I've come to a conclusion that to ease my mind that the background would be properly embedded within the epoxy coat, that the background would have to be cut short in several areas.....As Desertdawg pointed out and suggested cutting the background holes for the bulkheads bigger than the actually bulkheads to allow for the edges of the bulkhead holes to be sealed and blended with the rest of the epoxy......I'm planning on using 2" sched 80 bulkheads in the tank. I got use to using sched 80 bullkheads with my last build and love the way they are built and they are heavy duty and should be used when drilling the bottoms or for CL in a tank IMHO......With that being said the hole size needed just for the bulkhead is 3 1/4", so I would drill the initial bulkhead hole 3 1/2" to give me a 1/4" buildup of epoxy on the inside of the hole.....In my mind I'm thinking I should cut the holes in the background to 4"-5" to ensure myself plenty of area to bond and blend the epoxy to seal the background in place????
My other area of concern with the background is around the perimeter; where I wanted to run it right to the edges, I would feel better cutting it roughly 1 1/2" - 2" from the edges of the perimeter of the tank. I think were I have reservation is possibly the look of having the background shortened 2" on each end and 2" on the top and bottom.....I don't think it will be much of an issue with the background being shortened 2" on the top and bottom, because of rock work and everything else, but I think it might become a distraction on the sides of the background?????
So guys need your opinion or thoughts on cutting the background 2" short on top, bottoom and sides, and cutting the area of where the bulkheads will go as well...????? Thoughts/Opinions needed/wanted....getting anxious to get the back of the tank done....
