Stocking Suggestions For A 75 Gallon

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Stand is all finished!

Well the structural part is anyway, next time will be onto staining/varnishing.

:)

Even worked out how to do a door I am happy with

Ended up taking the easy way out, and ended up making a slab door, but prettied it up with a router profile around the sides, and putting some moulding on the front for a bit of depth.

Definitely happy with it

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Staining next! wooo exciting
 
Had a bit of a chat with the boys down at a local aquarium about lights and hoods and stuff, and I think I've come up with a plan for the next part of the build.

I'd been having trouble with picturing how I could do a lid, and I had a look at theirs, and I think I've got an idea of what to do

I'm going to keep it simple and basically make a box. But I'll run a roman ogee router edge around the top and bottom of the sides like I did on the doors to give it a bit of shape. And then put a two boards down the top, one of them fixed, and one of them on a hinge to make the door. It's simple, but I think that might be best.

EDIT: actually looking at it, I might split that front board into two. Make two smaller to handle sections, prob will work better


Knocked up a simple shot to get the dimensions right in my head

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They had good things to say about weight too, so I don't think I'll have a problem.

Not sure when I'm going to find some time to do this though I've a vague feeling there's parties on this weekend on both Sat and Sun to go to.
 
That is a very strong tank stand Axis. I must admit that none of mine are quite that much over engineered. My own stands tend to be built of nothing more than 1x4 and 1x6 lumber with 2x2 pieces for supporting the weight of a tank. Your 2x4 and larger components remind me of my youth, before I figured out the real strength of wood under compression. I have a link in my signature area to my own tank stand thread. As much as I admire your efforts, I suspect that your stand is "over built".
 
I agree with you VERY much OldMan47.

Definitely, definitely overbuilt.


I'm sure I could have gotten away with smaller wood, but figured better safe that sorry. So I should be safe, as I'm pretty sure I could put my car on top of this thing :).

I did think about using 70x30s but actually it seemed easier to use the 90x45s. Its given more wiggle room for screws, etc etc, And made for pretty easy putting together. and made for an easy way of getting the legs under the frame neatly.


All in all, I'm glad I went for the hardcore option, if its worth doing its worth overdoing I usually find.

Maybe that's the geophysicist in me.
 
Water is also very heavy and if you are going to make a stand for a big tank, its better to be safe than sorry! I love the fact that you have put a lot of time and effort into this, its going to look like a real piece of furniture rather than a cheap coffee table. I'll be referring back to this thread a lot when start to build a stand for my next upgrade, keep us updated! :) I also love the fresh wood colour, hope it it doesn't end up getting painted or stained a horrible dark colour :D
 
Thanks Tizer,

I'm always here for questions

The Plan[sup]TM[/sup] is for a light yellow/honey pine colour to match the rest of the furniture we have.

I've got myself some of this stuff right now.

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http://www.bondall.com/monocel/monocel_satin_stain_varnish.html

In the Baltic Pine colour, which looks about what I want from the samples at Bunnings.

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And then I've got some clear stuff to put on a couple of coats after that.


I'm going to give a test run on a few leftover offcuts though before I even think about putting any on the main unit, so I'll hopefully have some updates on those sooner rather than later.


Don't want to ruin it now by rushing the staining and having it look like crap.
 
So I put my plan for the Hood into practice this weekend. First of all finished off the other doors, so they are all done.

Then we build the hood.

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Pretty happy with how the routered edge around the top and bottom looks, definitely helps tie it together. I'm glad the plan came together for the hood, as it was bugging me all week.


So that's basically it for all the woodwork now, next step is pretty much a puttying up the few nail holes around, and then staining/varnishing.
 
Going to try some stain on a test piece tonight
 
Okay so I splashed a coat of stain over an offcut to see what colour came up.

And I'm pretty happy, pretty much the colour I was going for. Or should be with another coat at least.

But its the light colour I wanted anyway.

I'll put another coat on tonight and see how that deepens it.

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Well I put another coat on yesterday.

Actually it was a bit tough to get on smoothly, might have to look into thinning a bit.


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Unfortunately upon discussion with the wife, the current colour isn't really matching the rest of our furniture.


I might have to look into a different stain...... I wonder if you can make mixtures between two to make a custom colour.


Nuts.... knew this bit wouldn't be easy.
 
Matching a color preference is the easy part Axis. If you have built as strong as you said, that tank stand is good for at least 50 years. Now you and your "significant other" must agree on a final color. In my experience, that is the hardest p-art of any stand build, and I have built lots of them.
 
heheh yeah I knew getting a colour past the wife would be the tricky bit.

Hence the test pieces

:)

I'm going to give the other colour stain I have handy a go tonight, see what that looks like, might meet with approval.

Might try rubbing the stain on too, I wasn't too happy with the paintbrush I must admit.
 
Okay here's the test from the other colour stain I had, and I tried rubbing it on this time with a cloth, and I I think I kind of like how it went on better this way.

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I think its closer in matching to the rest of our furniture too.

I'll give it another coat over the weekend and see what it comes up like.
 
looking nice, i likey! I've always found staining with a cloth gives a far better finish :D
 
Put an another coat.

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Getting somewhere with this one I think, I'll run it by my wife tonight and see what she thinks.
 

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