Hookup
New member
Well I got the canopy construction done, not the stain. That will be attacked this week. Thought I'd post some photos. However, the process was not easy for me. I built out the frame by tracing the curve on some wood and cutting it out using a jig-saw. This allowed me to get a base for the canopy and an upper deck area. Think of 2" wide board shaped to match and sit on the perimeter of the tank. Then using some basic 2x1 boards I built the structure to a 25" height, cause that was the height i needed for the lumen bright, and junk. Some cross braces on the straight-sides really increased the strength. Finally, using a hunk of 2x4 I traced the curves and used a scroll-saw to cut out the door-braces where I used 1 screw per board, (one on top and bottom in the middle of the vertical face board to make the doors. The first and last 3 boards on my canopy are perm attached to the frame, the rest are doors.
(ok, that description sucks, if you want more pm me, or post here and I can do a wright up with some photo instructions.)
Hope that helps and inspires. Honestly, my wood working skills suck. I had to make both doors twice. At first I went to HomeDepot and bought a decent jig-saw hoping to cut the cabnet door braces out with it... yeah well 3 failed attempts (they will not cut perfectly vertical over a 2" thick piece of wood) I remember that someone ages ago gave my wave a scroll-saw in a box in a past life.. anyhow I darted to the garage to see if it could cut 2x4's on their side.. and it could.. now I spent about 5 hours cutting out the curve shapes, badly at first, until I learned the tool better... The final door, was the big-door version 2.0 and it took about 20min of cut time for both braces, and almost no sanding.. version 1.0 of those doors took well into 1.5hrs and way-too-much sanding to remember... hahaha...
All I'm saying is anyone with the ability to post on this forum can make these doors and i'm sure most of you can do a heck of a lot better....
I'll post once it is stained to finish the project... oh, and I have to mount the 5th and 6th (last two) T5's into the big-door. That I have figured out, just have to get off my butt and get it done.
(ok, that description sucks, if you want more pm me, or post here and I can do a wright up with some photo instructions.)
Hope that helps and inspires. Honestly, my wood working skills suck. I had to make both doors twice. At first I went to HomeDepot and bought a decent jig-saw hoping to cut the cabnet door braces out with it... yeah well 3 failed attempts (they will not cut perfectly vertical over a 2" thick piece of wood) I remember that someone ages ago gave my wave a scroll-saw in a box in a past life.. anyhow I darted to the garage to see if it could cut 2x4's on their side.. and it could.. now I spent about 5 hours cutting out the curve shapes, badly at first, until I learned the tool better... The final door, was the big-door version 2.0 and it took about 20min of cut time for both braces, and almost no sanding.. version 1.0 of those doors took well into 1.5hrs and way-too-much sanding to remember... hahaha...
All I'm saying is anyone with the ability to post on this forum can make these doors and i'm sure most of you can do a heck of a lot better....
I'll post once it is stained to finish the project... oh, and I have to mount the 5th and 6th (last two) T5's into the big-door. That I have figured out, just have to get off my butt and get it done.
I love the way you have your lighting setup! I also like how you paid attention to the small details like wanting to cut out light pollution by filling in the gaps.
