[migget]

OK I have been talking about starting a thread on how im building the stand you see. This start to finish build will be me trying to take you through the process of choosing you wood, trim, moldings, doors, and equipment needed to build your own stand if desired.
1-Choosing the right wood. Most ppl when they're looking to by a stand and canopy dont take into consideration wood strength, they only look at, "Ooooo thts a preety peice or board", but its alot more important to not only look at now the grain is but what kinda strength the wood your using will withstand. Water weighs somewere around 7.9 lbs/gal so if you have a 100gal tank with sand, rock and water you looking at around 500lbs of water, 200lbs of rock if you double the rock to tank size, and another 200-300lbs of sand. All total the peice you has to withstand around say 800-1000lbs of stuff sitting on the stand you've built or bought for a 100gal tank; no including the canopy and lighting and w/e else your gunna set on top of it.
1/2" plywood is gunna hold less weight per square inch then 3/4" plywood and so on, but at the same time you have to look at how much the plywood weighs so tht your not building something you can't move when your down, 1/2" plywood weighs about 22 lbs. per sheet depending on the kinda of wood you by. 3/4" about 35-40 lbs. and so on the more plys you add. Some wood jsut weighs more then other; oak weighs more then pine b/c oak is a more dense wood and so on. So make sure the wood you wanna use isnt gunna kill you mvoing it.

2-How your gunna go about gettign the right dimensions.
Ok this is one of the more ezer parts the process. Look at the desired tank you wanna build and measure not hte length, width and deepth of the glass,( if your using a glass tank) but he L,W,D of the plastic surroundign the top and bottom of the tank. Acrylic is ezer b/c you jsut measure the outside dims of the tank and you good. Example- A all-glass tank 48"x18" or 24" is really 48 3/4"x 18 3/4" or 24 3/4" b/c you have to add the extra length for the bottom and top plastic surrounding the tank. Once you've got those you can set up work area.

3- Your work area. Make sure tht you have plenty of room due to the fact tht most sheets of plywood are 4' x 8' or 10' .
If your working in a garge like i am spread your work area out so your not tripping on yourself. Another good rule of thumb before you start to work is to have a scetch or drawing of what you wanna build, roughly how the fisinshed product will look and dims telling you how wide, tall, and deep each peice of wood is you wanna cut. Measure twice, cut once. the tools you gunna need in the simplest for is a screw gun, drill, hammer, tape measure, T square, right angel square and rotor for doing those finishing touchs. I'm using a air compressor and nail gun ( gunna be your best bet on making them) so i have an extra hand to hold things square not trying to hammer and hold etc, also a table saw and Mitter saw will be a MUST. Going around to ur LFS also helps as you can see how a facotry would build a stand and canopy so your not to lost when if trying to picture it in you mind.

Ok no for some pics at this point to give you a visual of what talking about. The stand I'm making at this time is 48 3/4"w, 18 3/4"d and 40"t so your not bending over to much to look in at your fish when you standing; 48" tall imo is to much and your bordering on blow-out if you dont have the support needed for such a tall tank. The stand i have alrdy built and posted pics of is 40" tall.

what you see is 3 hours of cuttign and nailing so far


4-Staining and painting your wood. I woudl have to suggest being tht I built one alrdy is to paint or stain the wood your working with before hand so you get even coverage all over the peices. This one is not stained but i have left myself room to work with open spaces and not trim or moldings in the way. OOO AND TAKE YOU TIME, NOTHING YOU ARE DOING HERE NEEDS TO BE RUSHED. Just making a point not shouting lol. More will come as I move along with the project, its very cold here which make staining harder for you so I stopped for now.

[migget]

OK something happened to my pics on photobucket ill repost things as they go, sorry for the delay.

john

[redsea]

Originally Posted by migget

OK something happened to my pics on photobucket ill repost things as they go, sorry for the delay.

john

thats ok, i cant wait to see the pics!!!

[migget]

Ok the design i chose for this build has colum like peices in the front of each corner and on the back of each side make a more uniform look. I would suggest pre assembling the peice and not nailing each peice as you got, it just make for a easier time. I attached the front two colums a few days ago and my wife stained everything then; what your seeing now is me starting to install the two back colums and the nailer as i call it so you can attach them with a more seemless look and cutting down on the nails you would have to use diagonally.

Example-



The next few photos are of the crowning installed and filler in on the nail heads. Theres not much to this step other then the cutting of each peice and well you'll have to measure and what w/e your dims are. I used 3 1/2" crown molding and some 2x4 backing cut at a 45 degree to add more support for the molding. I nailed it on the base using 1 1/4" finish nails making sure to attach each section to the base and a few nail in the corners as i went. After i was done installing the molding i didnt like how it looked to i installed some 3/4" trim molding on top of the crown which i liked but i ran out of the stuff lol, so ill be taking it off and buying some unfinished stuff in the morning.

Example-

[migget]

Ok so i put the top moldings on the stand didnt really come out like i hoped but i fixed the issue with some wood and wood puddy. Here some pics of tht. Im still using a nailgun, tablesaw, miltersaw router to do most of the cutting.



ok I took this shot so you all could see how i inset the trim around the base of the fish tank so you wont see the black base if your using a glass tank and it adds some more depth the piece....

[migget]

Today I started work on the canopy. Cutting out the were the door is going to go so i can line it up with the doors on the base stand making sure there both in the right place. Making the canopy is the same steps as the base just using less wood and working with a smaller area.

[smoovie]

You got skills. Me likes.

[BLKBRDTA]

Originally Posted by smoovie

You got skills. Me likes.

Yes. Yes he does. Lookin great John, trim work is inexplicable!

Quality of the wood surpasses any I have seen.

Beautiful!

[migget]

OK i know its been some time since i posted anything last and it seems like this is taking me forever. Me and my wife have had some personal issue come up, my mom in the hospital and such and were also in the process of starting out on Reef website to expand the hobby and sell thingsat a reasonable cost lol, so all and all were busy.
The door was made by me, nothing i could find in stoores fit what i wanted and if i did find something to look at it was like 30-60 bucks a door and I wasnt paying tht much, its a lil messy im still in process of completing things and i cant find the trim i used to make the doors with so things are going slower still, but heres some more progress of what ive done so far.