Working on a little stand

[BigDave]

Not reef related, but still an aquarium stand.

My wife has a 5 gallon Beta tank at her school she brings home each summer.

This year, we brought home a piano, so the place where our little 10 gallon tank and the 5 gallon Beta tank live is no longer available.

I'm working on building a little stand for both of them to go on. The 10 gallon will go on top and the 5 gallon will sit on the shelf. I'm building doors to enclose the bottom and will drill a hole in the back to run the power chords through to hid everything inside the cabinet.

The stand is made from oak and I used dimensional lumber where I could to limit ripping any boards. It's been a while since I've made any 'real' furniture and even longer since I've used oak. I found out pretty quick my old table saw blade is worn out.

Here's the progress I got to on Saturday. Sunday I got the doors made, but an outage at work kept me from getting the hardware fitted.

The hope is to get it finished this weekend. We picked out a somewhat dark brown to stain it and then I'll put a few coats of poly to help protect everything.

 

[Vinny Kreyling]

Nice!!

 

[billdogg]

Very nice job.

Pics when it's set up please!

 

[bekate]

Looks very stable. Great work! Post photos when it's all done with the tank on it

 

[davocean]

Looks cool, clean!

 

[RobZilla04]

:thumbsup: Nice

 

[Apotack]

Very nice

 

[BigDave]

Got a little more work on the stand done. Finding time to get into the garage during the week is always a challenge. Add on to that that I had to mow the lawn last night, and I was really pressed to get much done.

I did, however get the doors roughed in:

Need to do some final fitting and mount all the hardware. Then I can start staining.

 

[BigDave]

Spent about 3 hours last night fitting the doors into place.

I used the penny method and a lot of hand tools. Trying to take 1/32" off with a table saw was pretty interesting.

Tools used:

Fitting the gaps:

With all the hardware:

After the last picture was taken, I had to remove all the hardware and run the doors through the jointer set at an angle to put a small bevel on the inside corner of each door so they won't hit when opening and closing the doors. I think I did 3 passes at 10º.

Only thing left is final sanding, staining, and poly. I bought a new color of stain I want to try out, but I'll probably do a few test pieces of different colors to see which one I really want to use. I haven't decided if I'll brush or spray the poly. I'm leaning towards spraying it.

 

[davocean]

Spraying will come out cleanest.
I usually will roll or brush 2 coats, sanding between coats, and my final 3rd pass will be a spray on, that way good penetration w/out any brush or roller marks.

Looks good!

 

[BigDave]

Question on the feet.

What should I put on the bottom of the legs? It sits pretty level, but I don't like the idea of the wood sitting direct on the ground (not sure why). It's going to be sitting on a tiled floor.

 

[davocean]

I suppose it would be nice to have something like the vinyl pads to both buffer at floor and also protect end grain from any moisture

 

[BigDave]

I did a bunch of searching and settled on these:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01GQ3IIZ8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I want to say I used these once before on something else I built.

 

[davocean]

Looks perfect

 

[BigDave]

Time to pick a color.

My wife likes the one on the far left. I really like the second from the right.

My kids and I picked out the second from the left last weekend, but I'm not sure I'm a fan of it now that it's on a test piece.

The weird thing is, I don't own a lot of stains (just the 4 actually), and I can remember which piece I bought each color for. For the life of me, I can't remember when/why I bought the light colored one.

Either way... we'll probably end up going with the light colored one. I'll put some poly on the top two test pieces and get confirmation from the wife which one to go with.

 

[Smokey Stover]

Maybe try just a coat of clear on a sample. With Red Oak all the variations come out and can be kind of interesting.

 

[BigDave]

Maybe try just a coat of clear on a sample. With Red Oak all the variations come out and can be kind of interesting.

I'll try that too.

 

[davocean]

Clear will make grain pop and show color best.

I do like the redish tones best myself, so 2nd from right, and far right looks more like espresso which is another fav, but in the end it's eye of beholder, and I always advise matching to home decor when possible

 

[BigDave]

I am using water based polycrylic. My understanding is it tends to 'color' the wood less than the lacquer based varnishes do.

We'll see after I get the test colors on.

There's no other wood in the room that this is going in, so no need to match it to another wood color.

Our furniture tastes are all over the place.

I enjoy the arts & crafts style stuff and tend to build things that somewhat resemble that (cleaner lines, some trim work), although my joinery skills aren't there for the full through mortises and other aspects of the design.

Our bedroom furniture is more rustic looking with wrought-iron hardware. Our dining room is somewhat more modern looking.

 

[BigDave]

Test colors went well.

After seeing it with the clear coats, we decided to go with the Red Mahogany stain.

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