Build Log: Custom Stand

I don't have a lot of space in my office/den I decided to design and build a custom sized stand to hold all of my tanks. Since my kids are on school holidays and bored stiff already, this also ended up as a fun activity for the 3 of us...

Since I don't have access to welding machines and woodworking tools I decided on the following bolt-together design:



Bottom shelf: 6 x 5G breeding tanks
Mid shelf: 30 or 55G
Top shelf: 30 or 2 x 20G

Materials:
25x25x2mm square tubing (light yellow)
40x40x3mm angle iron (orange)
38x38x2mm square tubing (pink)
M8x50mm & M12x50mm nuts & bolts
1500x610x20mm pine laminate board (not shown in drawing)

Despite assurances of my father in law (structural engineer) that it'll hold the weight, I'm going to load test the contraption carefully before moving tanks over. Theoretically the M12 bolts are rated at 15KN shearing force which "hopefully" means I'd have to put over 1 and a half tons per bolt to end up with a major catastrophe.

Only 1 way to find out if it's going to be strong enough... build it!

Day 1: Buying the raw materials...



Day 2: Cleaning up the edges, drilling pilot holes and primer coating...

Rough edges filed off the ends of each component. Rust and scale removed with wire brush. 4mm pilot hole drilled. Each piece thoroughly cleaned with thinners...



The kids have plenty fun applying the undercoat primer with a small roller...



If you are wondering why we painted primer on first before drilling all the holes to size - I only have a small power drill so taking the parts to the father in law this weekend to use his pillar-drill...

Thats it for part 1 - comments and prayers appreciated!

UCF-Planted said:

Any plans to wrap in some kind of wood skinning afterwards or planning to leave it a little "industrial"?

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Wood is hellishly expensive here especially high grade. "industrial" is as much to do with keeping to budget as personal preference. The pine laminate I'm using for the shelves is from a machine packing container my father in law got hold of - free apart from the bottle of whisky he's charging to cut it to size for me! lol

I think it would be cool if all the metal was covered in "Rhino-liner"-like truck bed coating.

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Awesome idea! thanks!

As for the cross beams, why not attach them at the apex of the joints?

Click to expand...

I hadn't thought of that. Luckily I haven't drilled the angle irons yet... thanks for the heads-up!

Update...

Day 3 - Holes drilled to size. Checking alignment...



Although a lot of care was taken to mark off and drill accurately, I'm still amazed that it fits together perfectly...



Perfect except for one small oversight... spot the mistake!



Ooooops! I changed the width of the stand at the last minute and forgot to calculate the length of the diagonal brace again. Some additional cutting and drilling now required! :mad2:

But then again - the extra length sticking out might make a handy mounting for my CO2 etc... the thickness plots...

Finally found some time to spend on my stand. Been a bit hectic work wise and still waiting impatiently for dad-in-law to cut the wood to size for me. He's promised to do it this weekend so hopefully I'll have more to show soon...


Final coat of paint done - awesome color isn't it! :dance:

Some extra holes drilled and threaded for the additional side cross supports that became necessary when I realised the whole structure could easily concertina forwards or backwards without much of a push in either direction.

The good news - A client of mine that does computer aided engineering successfully loaded a computer model of the stand with 1100 Kg before the bolts started showing any serious strain. Thats almost double the weight I was hoping to support and an acceptable safety factor!

The next challenge - cleaning the spilt drops of yellow paint off the paving bricks before the wife gets home! :1zhelp: