proof that design ( not 2x4's) are key to stand integrity.

[maypo59]

It is funny that in this thread about 2x4 vs ply you show the wrong way to create a 2x4 stand for a tank (your sump). Obviously this is well built for your purpose though.

He probably knows this but for anyone else reading this I am talking about the lag screws carrying the weight of the top. It is better to out the 2x4 top frame over the 2x4 posts so the relatively week screws aren't carrying the weight. It looks like he used lag screws so he was likely aware if this and compensated.

OK.. I wasn't planning to get into a debate here in any way..

BUT.. the shear point of EACH of those lags is 2700lbs.

http://nucor-fastener.com/Files/PDFs/TechDataSheets/TDS_013_Shear_Strength.pdf

There are 8 of them. So the shear point of that top is around 8 TONS. Thanks for pointing out EXACTLY what the OP was saying. People overbuild for no reason.

I used lag screws because they were close/handy. I, and they, were in the basement. I could have walked back up stairs and gotten some regular screws or nails, but again, my belt pouch was empty and they were down there on a shelf... I would have had no second thoughts about using the same screws seen elsewhere. NONE. The shear rating on number 8 wood screws is just under 2100lbs.

 

[mr.maroonsalty]

These threads get out of control. That bench is framed just fine; it's perfectly acceptable to lag material together and it is done all the time. The whole second floor of my barn is held up that way and thousands of other buildings the same way too.

 

[usmc121581]

No, its not. While it serves a cosmetic purpose, it also ties all those 2x4s together. Someone above gave an example of a cheap bookshelf. Without that thin backing I can easily destroy it by twisting the frame. 1/4" plywood over a 2x4 frame will add a tremendous amount of strength.

I agree, I was able to get a complete 180 gallon setup for free. Last year I decided to re skin it, when I removed the plywood from around the tank, I had to brace it. The tank swayed side to side to the point that I thought it could buckle. Last year when the tank had to be moved I revbuilt the stand out of all 2x4's, once I completed the shell I used a varnish to water proof the 2x4's and then instead of using ply wood, I used 1/4x3" shims and wrapped the shell.

 

[maypo59]

Now that is a very deep thought!

You do realize that as soon as a moderator sees that you are post padding just to get to 50 posts (or whatever it is) that you need for the selling forum... they are going to knock you back to 0.

...?? he has been a member since '02... He doesn't seem to be in a hurry about padding his post count.. LOL

But maybe that is what I am doing.. I have only been here since '04.

Generally I don't post much.. because of the stuff that happens in a lot of threads here.. just like this one.

 

[Drae]

...?? he has been a member since '02... He doesn't seem to be in a hurry about padding his post count.. LOL

But maybe that is what I am doing.. I have only been here since '04.

Generally I don't post much.. because of the stuff that happens in a lot of threads here.. just like this one.

bean is just being sarcastic. lol i laughed pretty hard actully.

 

[cd823]

my tank is not going on a saw horse!!!! My stand is 1/8" thick tubular steel and it could hold about 10 tons and that's fine.

View attachment 219258

lol

Steel stand may be just slightly overkill. But you never know, you could find a piece of LR that has the density of Mercury and weighs 100 times more than it looks.

 

[leveldrummer]

personally, its much easier for me to cut 2x4s square and at equal lengths to build a stand, then skin it with very thin cheap plywood to get a very nice finished looking product that is strong and pretty, then to get a large sheet of very expensive plywood and cut long, straight perfect cuts to make a stand that is square and level and all that.

it also seems the 2x4's will be cheaper with a thin veneer then building out of a few sheets of very thick plywood with a nice veneer. maybe im wrong about that though.

 

[nemosworld]

personally, its much easier for me to cut 2x4s square and at equal lengths to build a stand, then skin it with very thin cheap plywood to get a very nice finished looking product that is strong and pretty, then to get a large sheet of very expensive plywood and cut long, straight perfect cuts to make a stand that is square and level and all that.

it also seems the 2x4's will be cheaper with a thin veneer then building out of a few sheets of very thick plywood with a nice veneer. maybe im wrong about that though.

this is true for a lot of people, but did you know if you knew what cuts you wanted to make, you can go to a lumber yard or even HD and Lowes and have them cut your would for you.
I plan to build my next stand with plywood to save space inside of the stand and also make it lighter. so i have decided to plan out my dimensions and have the lumber yard i purchase my wood from make my cuts for me.

this way i get true cuts, since i don't own a large table saw.

 

[sirreal63]

If you are building a rectangle or cube, plywood is easy and lumber is easy. What do you do with an odd size and shape? What if the only woodworking tools you have left are a chopsaw, sander, cordless drill and jigsaw? I sold all my wood working tool when I took a job that had me moving yearly and on the road most of the time. What you do is build a lumber stand, skin it with plybead and trim to hide the joints and dress it up. In some ways I am ashamed of it, my old shop teacher would rip me for the joinery, but I am also pleased that it turned out as well as it did with the limited tools at my disposal at the time. The most important thing is Toni approved of it and that's the highest priority.

I knew I wanted the three openings facing the room to be doors for good access, the left one and right one are hinged and the middle panel is held in with magnets. If I had my old woodworking shop I may have been able to do this stand in plywood but I still would have used lumber, I just would have made the correct 22-1/2 degree cuts, something I could not have done with the tools I had when I built this.

Is it overbuilt? Oh yeah, it is massively overbuilt for a 40x40-110 gallon pentagon. Do I care? Not a chance, I can move it by myself with my bad back and it has worked extremely well. Make your stand the way you want, just ensure that the design is adequate for the load that will be on it, if it ends up being overbuilt that is not a bad thing.

 

[38bill]

I've posted this photo before showing my static test of the screwed and glued, all plywood (except 3/4" oak face frame) stand I built for my 215G. There is around 3,000# sitting on the stand. After I had placed about half of the patio block I realized that there was a dip in the concrete floor directly under the center of the stand so I added some shims just to be safe. After the stand was loaded I easily removed the shims as the stand had not deflected at all.

[/IMG]

 

[jagow4]

ok a little defense of my original reply when i asked who elected DRAE as the aquarium stand building police. everyone stop worrying about feelings and read what he had written. it was pretty much sitting there saying that those that elect to save money and build their own stands do it wrong because they use to much wood. you know what if some of us choose to build our stands out of 2X4's or whatever other lumber we decide to use is our issue. some of us have been in this hobby for years and have aquired many different corals and fish and dont want anything to go wrong. and others of us just dont give a damn and use the addage that bigger is better. so next time you want to start telling those of us that use to much wood on our stands why dont you post some pictures of your tanks and let us tell you what you are doing wrong as well. and then we will see who is getting defensive.

 

[reefer91]

ok a little defense of my original reply when i asked who elected DRAE as the aquarium stand building police. everyone stop worrying about feelings and read what he had written. it was pretty much sitting there saying that those that elect to save money and build their own stands do it wrong because they use to much wood. you know what if some of us choose to build our stands out of 2X4's or whatever other lumber we decide to use is our issue. some of us have been in this hobby for years and have aquired many different corals and fish and dont want anything to go wrong. and others of us just dont give a damn and use the addage that bigger is better. so next time you want to start telling those of us that use to much wood on our stands why dont you post some pictures of your tanks and let us tell you what you are doing wrong as well. and then we will see who is getting defensive.

You have clearly misinterpreted this thread. Go read something else and cool off.

 

[Drae]

ok a little defense of my original reply when i asked who elected DRAE as the aquarium stand building police. everyone stop worrying about feelings and read what he had written. it was pretty much sitting there saying that those that elect to save money and build their own stands do it wrong because they use to much wood. you know what if some of us choose to build our stands out of 2X4's or whatever other lumber we decide to use is our issue. some of us have been in this hobby for years and have aquired many different corals and fish and dont want anything to go wrong. and others of us just dont give a damn and use the addage that bigger is better. so next time you want to start telling those of us that use to much wood on our stands why dont you post some pictures of your tanks and let us tell you what you are doing wrong as well. and then we will see who is getting defensive.

:beer: my new build thread will be fully documented as I have never done so yet. I looked back at my op and thought " I hope people dont take that wrong" so I never took offense to your post. plus someone else basically took the words right out of my mouth bfore I could reply anyway. lol

 

[Drae]

also I, myself, own a stand with a 2x4 stand (my 150) so I wasn't talking smack at all. Just showing something that I thought was pretty cool, a rinky saw horse that was ridiculously strong imho.

 

[Drae]

I've posted this photo before showing my static test of the screwed and glued, all plywood (except 3/4" oak face frame) stand I built for my 215G. There is around 3,000# sitting on the stand. After I had placed about half of the patio block I realized that there was a dip in the concrete floor directly under the center of the stand so I added some shims just to be safe. After the stand was loaded I easily removed the shims as the stand had not deflected at all.

[/IMG]

Sweet. Proof is in that pudding for sure! nicely done sir. t
Thanks for sharing.:thumbsup:

 

[Allmost]

ok a little defense of my original reply when i asked who elected DRAE as the aquarium stand building police. everyone stop worrying about feelings and read what he had written. it was pretty much sitting there saying that those that elect to save money and build their own stands do it wrong because they use to much wood. you know what if some of us choose to build our stands out of 2X4's or whatever other lumber we decide to use is our issue. some of us have been in this hobby for years and have aquired many different corals and fish and dont want anything to go wrong. and others of us just dont give a damn and use the addage that bigger is better. so next time you want to start telling those of us that use to much wood on our stands why dont you post some pictures of your tanks and let us tell you what you are doing wrong as well. and then we will see who is getting defensive.

LOL ! wow ! bad dayS/week ? lol

if you do not want to learn, there are alot of other threads out there you can follow ....

others who want to learn more, can take advantage of this thread, and the ones like it.

WE ARE ALL HERE TO LEARN FROM ONE ANOTHER. if you can not handle learning from a fellow reefer, then no point for you being on here

 

[Drae]

If you are building a rectangle or cube, plywood is easy and lumber is easy. What do you do with an odd size and shape? What if the only woodworking tools you have left are a chopsaw, sander, cordless drill and jigsaw? I sold all my wood working tool when I took a job that had me moving yearly and on the road most of the time. What you do is build a lumber stand, skin it with plybead and trim to hide the joints and dress it up. In some ways I am ashamed of it, my old shop teacher would rip me for the joinery, but I am also pleased that it turned out as well as it did with the limited tools at my disposal at the time. The most important thing is Toni approved of it and that's the highest priority.

I knew I wanted the three openings facing the room to be doors for good access, the left one and right one are hinged and the middle panel is held in with magnets. If I had my old woodworking shop I may have been able to do this stand in plywood but I still would have used lumber, I just would have made the correct 22-1/2 degree cuts, something I could not have done with the tools I had when I built this.

Is it overbuilt? Oh yeah, it is massively overbuilt for a 40x40-110 gallon pentagon. Do I care? Not a chance, I can move it by myself with my bad back and it has worked extremely well. Make your stand the way you want, just ensure that the design is adequate for the load that will be on it, if it ends up being overbuilt that is not a bad thing.

Thats awesomely done for real! top to bottom.

 

[sfsuphysics]

:beer: my new build thread will be fully documented as I have never done so yet. I looked back at my op and thought " I hope people dont take that wrong" so I never took offense to your post. plus someone else basically took the words right out of my mouth bfore I could reply anyway. lol

It's the internet man, there are two things that will always ring true of anything posted 1) Someone somewhere can find a way to be offended by the post and 2) Someone somewhere will find a way to correct something "wrong" in said post.

So you could post a picture of a bunch of cute puppies playing in a grassy field and someone is going to cry "You are irresponsible! Should have had the dog spayed or neutered" then someone else will come along "that's actually a meadow not a field"

 

[James77]

it was pretty much sitting there saying that those that elect to save money and build their own stands do it wrong because they use to much wood. you know what if some of us choose to build our stands out of 2X4's or whatever other lumber we decide to use is our issue. some of us have been in this hobby for years and have aquired many different corals and fish and dont want anything to go wrong. and others of us just dont give a damn and use the addage that bigger is better. so next time you want to start telling those of us that use to much wood on our stands why dont you post some pictures of your tanks and let us tell you what you are doing wrong as well. and then we will see who is getting defensive.

He never said it was wrong to build a stand with 2x4's, and it is not. All he said was that with a little creative design and planning, a stand can be built with much, much less wood, and less internal space taken up. Don't take that fact as an insult to an overbuilt stand. Nothing wrong with it, just overbuilt .

2x4's are fine, easy enough to work with, easily available, and require minimal tools. However, they are grossly overbuilt for aquariums. People consider the factory stands as scary, but they are more than adequate and I do not recall ever seeing a story of one collapsing. As opposed to pure plywood, one could be done with 1x2's (or 3's or 4's) and skinned. One could rip 2x4's in half and save money and space, yet still have an extremely strong stand. One thing I like to point out is the actual weight of the tank and how it is spread out over many linear feet. A 180g tank will weigh about 2200-2300 pounds once its all done. But on 16 linear feet of stand, that's only about 140 pounds on each foot....its really not that much weight.

I am doing a 46g bowfront stand, and am debating what I am going to use. A sheet of 3/4" ply oak is $50. Cheap enough, but I have a nice shiny new sheet of 1/4" ply oak already. So I may do something with 1x3's and that instead.

 

[sleepydoc]

OK.. I wasn't planning to get into a debate here in any way..

BUT.. the shear point of EACH of those lags is 2700lbs.

There are 8 of them. So the shear point of that top is around 8 TONS. Thanks for pointing out EXACTLY what the OP was saying. People overbuild for no reason.

I used lag screws because they were close/handy. I, and they, were in the basement. I could have walked back up stairs and gotten some regular screws or nails, but again, my belt pouch was empty and they were down there on a shelf... I would have had no second thoughts about using the same screws seen elsewhere. NONE. The shear rating on number 8 wood screws is just under 2100lbs.

As I've said before, aquarium stands not only need to support the weight of the tank but keep the top flat and level without any deflection. The problem is not that the screws/bolts will shear off, but rather that the frame will deflect downward so that the top is slightly out of level. Failure with screws is typically not shearing, but rather ripping out of the wood itself, which occurs at far less than 2100 lbs.

I'm not saying that any design that uses screws/bolts is automatically wrong, but you do have to take things into account.