Tropical Vivarium DIY - Drilling Glass

Here's part 1 of our DIY vivarium project.

We're going to take 20G high fish aquariums and converting them into vertical, front-door opening planted vivs for crested geckos.

In this part, I'm going to show how we drill holes through glass to install mist king nozzles.

20G Aqueon/All-Glass brand aquarium. NON TEMPERED GLASS is required to drill through it. I think most 20G highs don't have tempered sides, but may have tempered bottoms for strength since that is where all the water weight is.
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Upturned, in the basement sink next to the washer, with some crappy comforter or blanket for cushioning.
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A rim of plumber's putty + water keeps the drill bit and glass cool, and also keeps most, if not all the glass dust created from drilling out of the air. Use a sharpie or other PERMANENT marker to mark your drill spot, and clean it off with alcohol. Dry erase markers will wash away when you pour water on them (oops!)
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Drill and drill bit. The drill bit is a circular hole cutting diamond bit, cost about $25 at Mendards. The drill is just a typical electric drill.
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The girlfriend wearing protection gear. Don't forget it, there is considerable risk! Dust mask, safety goggles, and leather gloves. The biggest concern for me is glass dust.
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Drilling is tricky, I'll try to explain it in a reply.
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20 minutes later or so (it takes a LONG time!), here's the finished product, with the glass we cut out placed on the putty.
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In our first attempt to drill, we learned that it's pretty much impossible to start the hole drilling straight up and down.. the drill is pulled off-center by the diamond coating on the bit as it spins. If you hold the drill at an angle, you can cut a starting groove, and over time slowly tilt the drill upright. I think with practice we'll get better at this, but the actual act of drilling was physically very tricky until we had a circular groove started.

Don't use any pressure beyond the weight of your drill. Don't go so slow that the drill moves around, but going to fast is a risk for shattering the glass.

Other than that, once you have a groove and you can drill a bit faster easily without the bit moving around on you, it takes quite a bit of time to get through the glass. We didn't time it, but certainly over 15 minutes and probably under 45.. I lost count of how many times I thought "we must be almost through!....right?"

When you get REAL close to getting through, your water pool created by the putty will start to leak and drip down. Keep refilling as needed, a friend is useful here.

We just finished drilling a hole through 3 more aquariums, and they all turned out much better than the first, so I thought I'd throw a few edits:

1) We found that going faster actually helps quite a bit.

2) When starting to drill, going in at an angle, rev the drill up to speed before you touch the glass to begin your groove. This helps prevent the bit from "grabbing" the glass and moving the drill out of position.

3) We went much faster with the others, and cut our time down to maybe 5 minutes to drill a hole rather than 20+. Better, smoother, faster. I think the first one was just a lack of confidence since this was the first time drilling glass, which is just a scary prospect.

Keep an eye out for more viv DIY threads as we install tree fern root backgrounds, front doors, drainage, substrate, perches, plants, lighting, and maybe more.

Very ambitious.:)

Cool project, I can't wait to see the finished viv.

Good job:gj:
I went through this learning curve a couple of weeks ago on my rat tanks too.
If you start your cut at about a 45 degree angle on high speed then slow your drill way down after you get your cut in the upright position it will cut great. Just remember high speed creates a lot of heat and heat is not good with glass.
Also i broke my first tank at that "almost there" spot because I didnt realize how "almost there" I was and dropped my drill through the side when the hole was there:oops: I wanst expecting it at that point and it is really hard to get use to drilling and NOT pushing on it.
***TIP***
I did find that it works great to back your glass. I set my tanks on some scrap 4x4s that I had and cut from the inside. You still cannot and dont want to push but my cuts came out a lot cleaner on both sides with the wood backing the glass.;)
Also, if you are not going to use a constant water flow, you might try filling your putty ring with sewing oil because it will disapate the heat better.

We use the same method when drilling tile for shower hardware.
A wet sponge will be better than a pool of water as you can control flow of water, instant clean up and you can get the water right to the tip of the drill.

Also, we've found sticking some masking tape over the drill site helps the drill bit to bite quicker and get your initial groove started.

I've never drilled glass before, but the practices hold the same for glass

Can you melt glass with a soldering iron? I've never tried. :confused:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SpiffyYoshi

Can you melt glass with a soldering iron? I've never tried. :confused:

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ummm no.