DIY Tank Stand (36"L x 18"D x 30") for 40 Gallon Breeder Tank
- Thread starter GeoPappas
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For the reference of anyone else reading this thread (I love it and the design, and it has convinced me to give my own shot at woodworking, to the point of purchasing a circular saw yesterday), an idea may be to try to cut out windows of a single sheet of plywood for the front face such that the entire face has grain in the same direction. If I can teach myself to plunge cut (thank you internet) I will be attempting this.
As far as I know it doesn't do anything. Shouldn't even be necessary to hold the frame steady, since the stand isn't long enough for that concern. You do see them put in these builds often, since it doesn't hurt anything either.
I am thinking of modifying this design so that instead of the bottom frame being pre-built into a rectangle, instead the vertical legs go directly to the floor, and then the bottom frame butts against the legs. In other words it would look similar to this stand in silhouette, but the legs would have to be lengthened by 3 1/2" to achieve the same height.
Reason for this change so I can put leveling feet in - I can't figure out a good place to put them with this design as they would be 1/2" off from the center of weight pressing down through each leg.
Reasonable? I will probably try to sketch it up and get it posted here in a new thread if need be.
Thank you...
Reason for this change so I can put leveling feet in - I can't figure out a good place to put them with this design as they would be 1/2" off from the center of weight pressing down through each leg.
Reasonable? I will probably try to sketch it up and get it posted here in a new thread if need be.
Thank you...
mellowvision
Seafood Lover
I replied to your thread, but this actually makes installing leveling feet less sturdy. Installing the feet into the end grain of the wood will fail more quickly than if they are installed across the grain of a horizontal member.
mellowvision
Seafood Lover
No, I never did tackle that job. Too many other things to do... Maybe one day.
It's been four years since I built the stand, so I don't remember a lot of the thoughts that went into it. But I'll give it my best shot...
If I remember correctly, I was looking for a stand that had more lateral support (as opposed to vertical support). Many of the commercial stands that were sold in the big box stores (PetsMart, Petco, etc) were built with only four (4) legs (one in each corner). I was about to purchase one of them, but when I took a hold of them and tried to move them, they had a lot of lateral movement (which was kind of scary considering that it was going to hold a tank that weighed about 400 lbs). Since I had small children at the time, I could imagine one of them grabbing the stand, pulling on it, and the whole tank coming down on them. So I decided to do a "Tim the Toolman" number and build my own stand. So the middle braces are not there for vertical support, but are added mostly for additional lateral support.
In addition, if you want to have two doors on the front, then there needs to be something in the middle (in between the doors). So this was also a way to add a center post for the doors.
Hope that helps.
If you used a single sheet of plywood for the front face (on top of the 2x4s), that would provide lots of lateral strength (as well as vertical strength) - as long as it was thick enough. So you could probably do away with the middle two (2) legs in that sort of design. But I would probably use a different sort of tool than a circular saw to cut out the holes in the plywood.
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