Show me Your Fancy STANDS!!!

[davocean]

The canopy is counter balanced by a 40lb weight & pulley set in equipment closet. totally DIY.

Beautiful tank and cabinet, and love the pulley idea!

 

[mhucasey]

I've been planning a 300g built-in, but started thinking that since it's been 8 years or so since I last set up a new tank maybe I should start small and work my way up. I've got a 30g bowfront in the attic so I got it out, dusted it off, and got to thinking about a stand for it. I am fortunate to have a fairy decent shop, and have about three thousand board feet of furniture grade maple, cherry, and red oak I got at an auction of a defunct furniture plant (for ~$2k otd! WAF hit a new low though lol) I've mostly built cabinets and don't have much furniture building experience, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to see what I could come up with.

I didn't have a plan or any drawings- just started playing around with some cherry and maple and made it up as I went along. Started by making a top in a way I thought complimented the tank, then came up with a stand to support it. Of course now that it's done it's too nice for that old bowfront so I'm going to have to make a hardwood tank to compliment it. Funny how that works....

I have to give a nod to "Scott3569" for his suggestion to use French cleats to hang the doors on a stand in another thread- I'd planned to use magnets but his idea worked much much better.

The left side of the stand is enclosed separately for the controller (Apex) etc to minimize any chance of water damage. The top and interior are finished with epoxy (l happened to have about 1\2 gallon of West system epoxy left over around from an old project about 7 years ago- makes a pretty nice self-levelling finish if you cut it with ~10% acetone). The rest of the stand is plain old rattle can spray poly.

I'm a little disappointed in the front panel- I tried splitting and bookmatching a piece of 6\4 maple and discovered 1) I should have joined the 2 halves the other way (I should have made the outer edges the center instead) and 2) I really need more practice with a bandsaw. I thought the top turned out really striking which is funny considering it will be completely covered by the tank...

There are a few things I might do differently next time but all in all I'm pretty happy with the result.

You have done a very nice job, and color me very envious on your purchase of that much hardwood. I have built a ton of furniture for my home and true furniture grade hardwood's beauty can cover a lot of minor flaws. Now you have an excuse to buy some cool woodworking tools

Personally my favorite finish for the wood is tung oil - you have to apply and buff off like car wax but with 2-4 applications nothing beats it for showing off the wood's beauty and it hardens in the upper layers of wood better than any poly.

 

[Laardvark]

You have done a very nice job, and color me very envious on your purchase of that much hardwood. I have built a ton of furniture for my home and true furniture grade hardwood's beauty can cover a lot of minor flaws. Now you have an excuse to buy some cool woodworking tools

Personally my favorite finish for the wood is tung oil - you have to apply and buff off like car wax but with 2-4 applications nothing beats it for showing off the wood's beauty and it hardens in the upper layers of wood better than any poly.

Thx! It's more wood than I'll use in a lifetime but it's nice to have and fortunately have plenty of room to store it.

I'm most definitely an amateur when it comes to finishing. I've used tung oil a few times and it does bring out the depth of grain nicely. That warning on the side of the can about soaking rags in water after use? They're not kidding. First time I used the stuff I left the used rag outside to see if it really did spontaneously combust. Sure enough, a few hours later the thing stared smoking and burst into flames (granted this was in the sun in Phoenix in summer, so was hotter and dryer than most places.

 

[cbashaw]

Here's mine. I still need to finish up some little details.

 

[feh]

Finally finished.

 

[ThisGuy12]

Now THATS some clear glass

 

[scott26]

Does anyone have more info on how to DIY the framing around the cabinet doors?

 

[doggydoc]

Here is mine...

 

[davocean]

Here is one I just finished building for a friend.
This was actually my first inwall build for a reef cabinet, and also my first time doing a flip up panel as well as active doors for the canopy.
Maybe some others can benefit from this design.

 

[woodnaquanut]

Cool doors on the canopy! I don't think I've ever seen it done that way.

It's a little hard to tell from the pics - does the tank sit out from the wall/stand?

 

[davocean]

Cool doors on the canopy! I don't think I've ever seen it done that way.

It's a little hard to tell from the pics - does the tank sit out from the wall/stand?

Thanks!
The opening was originally one of those big outdated TV cabinets.
We pulled that out and I built this, face frame rides the wall flush on the right side wall and the front glass panel of tank steps just inside of that.
Excuse the blurry cell pics, hard to see detail I know.

 

[williewilliams]

here is mine. Well two of them. There is a third 4 ft rimless to balance out the wall used as a long term grow out. Pictures are from when I first built them.

 

[davocean]

Very nice stand!!!

Thank you!

 

[woodnaquanut]

Thanks!
The opening was originally one of those big outdated TV cabinets.
We pulled that out and I built this, face frame rides the wall flush on the right side wall and the front glass panel of tank steps just inside of that.
Excuse the blurry cell pics, hard to see detail I know.

Thanks. I was suffering from an optical illusion!. The last pic looked like the tank was 4-6" proud of the wall. I starred at it for a few minutes to understand what was happening. Like looking at an m.c. escher drawing.

 

[mhucasey]

here is mine. Well two of them. There is a third 4 ft rimless to balance out the wall used as a long term grow out. Pictures are from when I first built them.

Very slick! I love it when the tank looks like a cube of the ocean!

 

[nvladik]

Here's some pics of the stand I finished building a few weeks ago:

 

[davocean]

Thanks. I was suffering from an optical illusion!. The last pic looked like the tank was 4-6" proud of the wall. I starred at it for a few minutes to understand what was happening. Like looking at an m.c. escher drawing.

Yeah I didn't close it in completely so there would be access to the vorts for that typical fine tune from vibration that occasionally needs to be done, that open space does make the tank look like it bumps out, but it's flush w/ wall.

 

[nvladik]

Looks like the images from tapatalk are not showing up, here they are again:

 

[davidwithababy]

Before I wired everything

This is EXACTLY what I want my stand to look like! clean but not too boring! Is that just painted plywood??

 

[Sn8kbyt]

What some beautiful stands and canopy's in this thread. Some of the craftmanship is mind blowing.

Here is my meek stand build as a novice around power tools for my current on going 210 build.