Building a stand

[JosefDevaty]

So I set out to build a stand and ran into a major problem. I built the bottom frame of the stand. When I went to measure the diagonals I cant seem to get the diagonals to line up even they are about 3/4 inch off. The outsides square up with a carpenters square but the insides are a bit off maybe 1/16 of n inch gap. All of the pieces of wood match up evenly in measurement. Im not sure what I am doing wrong. I tried looking up tips and tricks online for squaring things but I cant seem to find anything useful. As long as all my my pieces of wood are even does the square matter? Will the weight of the tank settle things out? Im no carpenter and would appreciate any insight on this.

 

[CHOPRJOHN]

measure twice cut once

 

[skinnyjoe1976]

couple of questions. the area that you checked it for being square, was it level area for the size of the stand? and is this the frame work that is tweak?

 

[JosefDevaty]

im building it on the garage floor which is relatively level. im just building the frame right now. its a box for the base of the stand with a center brace to prevent twisting and for strength. i got the bottom built, measured again and it was off. i took it apart at 2 of the corners .... so i have 2 "L" shaped pieces now. i tried lining them up to get a congruent diagonal measure and it just wouldnt even out. i know it probably sounds dumb and im thinking im missing something very simple.

 

[wardworld]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13986243#post13986243 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by CHOPRJOHN
measure twice cut once

Or in my case:
Measure twice, cut once, head back to Home Depot!

 

[moedocker]

sounds like its racked just pull the corners till they both measure the same and put a temp brace in till ya get it done

 

[Fuzzy]

Try using a steel corner brace. It will help square the frame and give added support.
After it is finished you can paint it with 2 part epoxy thinned with denatured alcohol to seal it against rust.
The alcohol will thin it so that its easy to paint, then evaporate to leave a good finish without degrading the seal.

Don't make yourself crazy about it - most of the lumber you get at big box stores these days is crap.
Odds are the wood its self is out of square.

 

[dugg]

What did you make your cuts with? Sounds like the ends of the boards are cut off square. If you used a circular saw, it's probably just a cheap blade issue.

 

[dugg]

Make that a bad blade issue. Some of the cheaper blades are good and stiff. Go to HD and get a Dewalt carbide blade. They are good and only cost around 10 or 20 bucks. If your blade is thin or dull, it will bend as it cuts and cause the cut to be off and make squaring impossible.

 

[firm]

Frame

Frame

How about a picture to completely understand this frame, sounds like it's not a typical frame??

A picture is worth a 100o words from back seat carpenters...

 

[skinnyjoe1976]

back seat capenters are good just like when you are lost and you have back seat drives trying to tell you turn right, no turn left. byw firm when you reply to a thread in the first box where in says post subject just hit the space bar and it will see it as a letter and allow you to post without having the bold word added to the top.

the reason i was asking about the the place is i've know people to build a stand on something that was not level (it was way off like 6" in a 36" run and they could not figure why the measure ments changed whne the finished and put it on the ground. plus keep in mind that garages are slpoed to allow water to drain out of them

 

[JosefDevaty]

Thanks everyone for all of the input. I think there were a couple of factors affecting the squaring. One of which was the slope of the garage. Between this advice and others who I have talked to I think Im going in the right direction now.