Formed Plexiglass Wall for Koi Pond

This is one of those fun jobs we get to do every now and then. A customer who is re-landscaping the backyard decided he wanted some clear Plexiglass walls to see the water and the koi fish. For a really BIG pond. So we had to take a couple of 48x96 sheets of Plexiglas that were 2" thick and bend them into an arc about 15ft across. Then we needed to put a hand rail on top. Make sure you Click to Enlarge this picture.

There are a lot of challenges to fabricating this part. First of all, there is no 16ft long sheet, and if there was, there are not too many 16ft long ovens to heat it up! So the fabrication method is to form 2 pc, and then chemically bond the 2 sections with liquid acrylic resin. That bond is almost as strong as the sheet itself.

Cutting the toprail is another challenge as the customer wanted one continuous piece. Again, we cut 2 pc and bonded together and then to the "wall". It takes a lot of practice to use this adhesive and achieve bubble free bonds - which give the appearance of 1 continuous piece.

But wait - now that we have created this 16ft monster, how do we get this out the door and in the backyard of the customer? Even though the destination was 30 miles away, packing for transport was intricate: we had to completely support the entire piece underneath - and put this on a custom pallet. At the job site it took 8 people to carefully lift and place it in the final position.

Pretty cool! Make sure you Click to Enlarge this picture.