Difficulty of building a tank stand.

[knifegill]

My wife is nervous about letting me build my own stand for my new 125g tank. I've built things before and have a good understanding of weight distribution and material strengths. But, in general, on a scale of 1-10, how technically challenging would construction of a stand of this magnitude be? I'm thinking of 1x2's and I can copy the design from my LFS.

 

[Noto]

Do you intend to skin it with plywood? That makes the stand build much easier, as it distributes weight and prevents things getting out of square without requiring much engineering knowledge. I can build a plywood stand, and I'm no carpenter.

 

[sk8zeroatskewl]

about a 3 i would say with a little understanding and research you can do it real easy i would suggest 2x4's

 

[Burko]

"how technically challenging would construction of a stand of this magnitude be? I'm thinking of 1x2's and I can copy the design from my LFS."

Stands are a pretty straight forward build as far as function goes.

Make sure the load is spread and transfered downwards to the legs and not reliant on a couple of sideway screws.

If you sheet (whole sheet) the sides and back it should stop most of the movement, you can always add more bracing later if anyone (or fish) is nervous.

 

[Animalmother]

A buddy and myself built one for a 125g long, in an evening. Neither of us even took woodshop in school. The parts we did sober came out great. Just save yourself some time and money and plan it properly, I have about 50$ of leftover wood, hinges and handles we decided not to use.

 

[cypher1024]

Go with 2x4s and support your horizontal beams with vertical ones directly beneath them and you'll be fine.

 

[Pharaoh]

For the frame - 3

For the finishing - 5

 

[PCG Aquariums]

2 build
4-8 finish

 

[knifegill]

Ah, thank you. Finishing would be the easy part for me. I was a professional finisher for three and a half years and can shoot almost anything. The worst things I encountered were the insides of preassembled cabinets and maple plywood with water-based stain, but they usually passed Q.C., so I must have done better than I thought. But I'm pretty hard on myself quality-wise.
So, yeah. I'll bring up this thread later for my wife and point at it while jumping up and down like a monkey. Maybe she'll concede. Thanks again.
And yes, I'll be at least backing it with plywood for stability, and probably wrapping the whole thing down the road when more $ rolls in.

 

[kdrun76]

And yes, I'll be at least backing it with plywood for stability, and probably wrapping the whole thing down the road when more $ rolls in.

Do more than back it. You wll have to buy a whole sheet of ply wood to do the baclk anyhow. That will easily leave you enough for the ends and apiece at each end on the front. After that.. you will probably want cupboard doors anyway.

Same cost as just backing it..... and much more sturdy.