I did exactly what you suggested about three years ago. I scored the sheets of acrylic with a straight edge and razor blade for relatively straight and clean edges. Then I assembled a tall, narrow tank using whatever acrylic glue is sold near the sheets of acrylic at Lowe's/Home Depot (it comes in a white/red tube and seems similar to silicone to me).
The finished tank is about 1" thick, 8" wide and 10" tall. The bottom piece is about 8" by 8" so the tank stands upright. I use a bubbler, check valve and pump meant for an aquarium to aerate the etchant. I don't use FeCl anymore, just CuCl, but the tank has held up well to it.
Regards,
-Paul
--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, "nathan_h_tna" <nathan_h_tna@...> wrote:
>
> I'm sure this has come up before, but I'd like to build a cheap etching tank and wanted to get some advice before I actually do it.
>
> I was thinking of buying a good sized sheet of fairly thin acrylic from Lowes or Home Depot, cutting it up into two big pieces for the front and back of the tank, two tall but narrow pieces for the sides, and then gluing it all together with some of that plastic weld stuff.
>
> The idea is that the tank would be really narrow (maybe 0.2") so it wouldn't take much etchant to fill it up. I was also thinking of getting one of those "air bubble devices" (I don't know what they're actually called!) from a petstore and gluing it to the bottom of the tank with the end of the hose sealed off and a bunch of small holes poked in it to agitate the etchant. It might also be possible to put a lid on the tank and putting the air intake on the bubbler and putting it inside the tank so that the fumes aren't constantly being expelled from the tank.
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> What are your thoughts?
>