xcaret
Guest
Here’s something you could use...
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2683563
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2683563
Mike's Last Build
- Thread starter sfsuphysics
- Start date
sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
Looks like Dan jumped all over that, but it's ok, I have a 100g water container and a 110g water container for my mixing station, not sure what the sizes of those are but based on how big they are compared to the RO unit there mine are a bit bigger. Gotta say does look nice.
Don't worry about the table saw, I made the jig, I might as well get some use out of it.
rygh
Guest
I have a table saw, router table, and a joiner, if you want to stop by on the weekend.
But yes a long drive.
Make sure to use waterproof wood glue, and you should be fine.
The problem with screws: If you hit the grain wrong, they can pull your board out of alignment slightly.
Need depends on joint of course.
For long straight cuts, I often use a skill saw and a straightedge instead of a table saw.
For really good dimensional lumber, I have given up on HD/Lowes. Go to a real lumber yard.
But yes a long drive.
Make sure to use waterproof wood glue, and you should be fine.
The problem with screws: If you hit the grain wrong, they can pull your board out of alignment slightly.
Need depends on joint of course.
For long straight cuts, I often use a skill saw and a straightedge instead of a table saw.
For really good dimensional lumber, I have given up on HD/Lowes. Go to a real lumber yard.
sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
Yeah I made a "jig" for my circular saw, fancy straight edge. My first worry was that the saw blade wouldn't cut smooth enough, but it seemed to cut just fine, granted not as glassy smooth as the router, but for the purposes it didn't leave any chipping on the edges. However I was just having a pain of a time judging how deep to do the second cut, and regardless of how carefully I lined it up there was a bit leftover in the corner that I'd have to clean up with the router anyways, so I figured why not just do the whole thing with the router. Plus the 3 foot long cut was a bit difficult to get a cut that was parallel to the sides just because the wood was so thin (1-3/8" wide)
sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
Episode 6: Nope, still not ready for tank yet.
So I made a jig to make dado cuts, U shape cuts in wood that other wood slides in. And I figure I'd use the same jig to do my half lap joint cuts. For those that don't know half lap joints are when you take a piece of wood, chop off half the thickness from the end and make it as wide as another board that will butt up into it, and then do the same thing to this "other board". The purpose of these joints is it allows you to get two pieces together at a 90° angle and makes the connection really strong compared to simply butting the two ends together, the reasoning is because you trimmed off the width of the board that butts into it you get a lot more surface area to glue, and as funny as it sounds the glue itself more often than not is stronger than the wood that you're gluing to. Now I could do a stronger joint with a mortise and tenon, but that takes a lot more skill and effort, to which I don't have the first and I don't want to put in the second, and considering these are going to slide into my leg dados I figure I don't need to get THAT strong.
So here's my jig in action, the idea is the two pieces of wood prevents the router from going too far, and I can just plunge the router down as far as I need (router has a plunge guide so I don't over plunge). The issue with this is it took me a couple hours just to set this thing up right so I trim off EXACTLY half of the wood width, test, trim more, test, trim test trim, and I'm sure there's a fancier way of determining the exact half way point but I'd probably spend a couple hours thinking about that anyways. So yay! once it was set up I did all the other boards in less than an hour.
Half lap goodness! So the plan now is glue them all together into rectangles then legs attach, and we have ourselves a stand (almost). That said, it's always best to dry fit things before you make permanent.
Fits like a glove! And with glue and clamps those thin joints should all but disappear. That's the good news, the bad news this is the only one that fits like a glove
The others need a little extra work, and unfortunately as Mario said in his post it's the small things that take up time, but the small things count a lot.
So that's where I'm ending this episode, not a lot to done because I haven't had a lot of time to do stuff, and this is like the 6th weekend in a row I don't get. I did have a moment of regret, wishing I just forked over the money for the aluminum to build a stand, and it would be done a weekend easily, especially after all the splinters I've gotten from running my finger along the ultra smooth wood... WHOOPS not a smooth part, 2" long piece of wood in my finger... and of course it's a very light wood so against my skin it's a PITA to see! Plus there's all the fatigue associated with this, bending over to do the cuts... back hurts, sit down to do the cuts, neck hurts from craning to see what I'm cutting, tools that spin at high rotation, hand/wrist fatigue due to the vibrations. But then I keep thinking, I'm saving nearly $500 doing this out of wood, and that $500 could almost buy an Apex EL, or part of an LED fixture, or all my overflow plumbing and return pump, or something that is a bit more valuable to me than my time.
So I made a jig to make dado cuts, U shape cuts in wood that other wood slides in. And I figure I'd use the same jig to do my half lap joint cuts. For those that don't know half lap joints are when you take a piece of wood, chop off half the thickness from the end and make it as wide as another board that will butt up into it, and then do the same thing to this "other board". The purpose of these joints is it allows you to get two pieces together at a 90° angle and makes the connection really strong compared to simply butting the two ends together, the reasoning is because you trimmed off the width of the board that butts into it you get a lot more surface area to glue, and as funny as it sounds the glue itself more often than not is stronger than the wood that you're gluing to. Now I could do a stronger joint with a mortise and tenon, but that takes a lot more skill and effort, to which I don't have the first and I don't want to put in the second, and considering these are going to slide into my leg dados I figure I don't need to get THAT strong.
So here's my jig in action, the idea is the two pieces of wood prevents the router from going too far, and I can just plunge the router down as far as I need (router has a plunge guide so I don't over plunge). The issue with this is it took me a couple hours just to set this thing up right so I trim off EXACTLY half of the wood width, test, trim more, test, trim test trim, and I'm sure there's a fancier way of determining the exact half way point but I'd probably spend a couple hours thinking about that anyways. So yay! once it was set up I did all the other boards in less than an hour.
Half lap goodness! So the plan now is glue them all together into rectangles then legs attach, and we have ourselves a stand (almost). That said, it's always best to dry fit things before you make permanent.
Fits like a glove! And with glue and clamps those thin joints should all but disappear. That's the good news, the bad news this is the only one that fits like a glove
The others need a little extra work, and unfortunately as Mario said in his post it's the small things that take up time, but the small things count a lot. So that's where I'm ending this episode, not a lot to done because I haven't had a lot of time to do stuff, and this is like the 6th weekend in a row I don't get. I did have a moment of regret, wishing I just forked over the money for the aluminum to build a stand, and it would be done a weekend easily, especially after all the splinters I've gotten from running my finger along the ultra smooth wood... WHOOPS not a smooth part, 2" long piece of wood in my finger... and of course it's a very light wood so against my skin it's a PITA to see! Plus there's all the fatigue associated with this, bending over to do the cuts... back hurts, sit down to do the cuts, neck hurts from craning to see what I'm cutting, tools that spin at high rotation, hand/wrist fatigue due to the vibrations. But then I keep thinking, I'm saving nearly $500 doing this out of wood, and that $500 could almost buy an Apex EL, or part of an LED fixture, or all my overflow plumbing and return pump, or something that is a bit more valuable to me than my time.
sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
Yup, had a few of those, the upside is with large splinters they're easy to yank out, all the other ones I'm happy my wife is incredibly near sighted, so when the contacts/glasses come off she almost has microscope vision and can get all my booboos
That said, did all the adjusting on the bottom set of boards, they're clamped and glued right now, I'll see about working on the upper set tomorrow sometime.
However when it rains it pours, went to wash up... no hot water, pilot light doesn't seem to want to stay on, I'm guessing it's an issue with the thermocouple, which great if it is because that's a $12 fix versus $600+ for a new water heater, although my water heater has definitely gone beyond the warranty date, probably two times over.
Edit: and the water heater is back in business! Now I just need to wait a couple hours before I can take a shower.
That said, did all the adjusting on the bottom set of boards, they're clamped and glued right now, I'll see about working on the upper set tomorrow sometime.
However when it rains it pours, went to wash up... no hot water, pilot light doesn't seem to want to stay on, I'm guessing it's an issue with the thermocouple, which great if it is because that's a $12 fix versus $600+ for a new water heater, although my water heater has definitely gone beyond the warranty date, probably two times over.
Edit: and the water heater is back in business! Now I just need to wait a couple hours before I can take a shower.
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sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
Those edges are splintered because of the router, unfortunately one one side of the jig supports the piece, so the other piece gets a bit of blowout... plus this is construction grade lumber here, not exactly the highest of quality. Nothing I particularly care about though, the bottom is going to be covered anyways. All this work with the joints that will never be seen
Flagg37
Guest
I don’t know if you’ve glued it all yet but my best advice is to use titebond 3 (of course the expensive one) since it’s the only one that is fully waterproof and clamp it good. If you get a good bond then it will dye stronger than the wood fibers themselves. I think tb3 is rated at like 3200 lbs/sq” so the mechanical fasteners are pretty much useless. I suppose if you wanted to you could use biscuits. They do provide some extra strength but in my opinion their biggest advantage is making sure everything lines up while you clamp it.
It’s too bad you didn’t do this a month ago before I moved my shop to Colorado. You can always pm me if you want woodworking advice.
It’s too bad you didn’t do this a month ago before I moved my shop to Colorado. You can always pm me if you want woodworking advice.
sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
I did glue it all together, well one set of boards, and I did use Titebond 3
sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
Not going to stain anything, plan on painting it all. This is cheap wood, don't really care about wood grain, even the plywood I use for the panels (probably, because something like black acrylic cost a god damn fortune, seriously, one small door will probably cost more than the rest of the stand)
sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
So with the power out I decided to pull out the chisel set and try to do some work by hand, not entirely true I had the chisel set out already, wasn't too bad near the window with light coming in, but ultimately I was not going to sand anything flat by hand... was not going to do that, so I went about cleaning out the junk drawer in the kitchen (that I really wish we didn't have) man there was a lot of crap in there.
So tried to dry fit everything, and still some little tweaks to do,
Doesn't look too shabby... but looks can be deceiving, the top is level, but at this stage that is fairly unimportant. the more important thing is that vertical parts are .. vertical, which they actually aren't They're off about 1/4-3/8" over the 3 foot span, and this is a much more critical issue that needs to be accounted for the top I can sand level as needed (and I still need a top deck that the tank will actually sand on).
This is the step that I actually was dreading, it's easy to get level in one plane, but now I got 2 more planes to level off... and 4 separate legs to do it! (Plus there's also the center posts that I didn't even put in yet! . The upside is it seems that I can push the stand into a vertical position with easy, the problem is when I let go it naturally goes back to where it is. Now a couple sheets of plywood in those directions can help prevent this racking and hold it straight, but I didn't want to put the plywood in until I got the sump in (which I still need to make), plus I feel like it should stand vertical without being forced that way. So I need to try and figure out why it's doing this, it's probably something as simple as the wood where it slips into the dado joints isn't exactly level so it's causing the tilt, or the dado joints aren't perfectly level.
Either way, I think I'm going to have to use screws to hold this together to allow the glue to dry because the design of the legs with the internal "rib" frame doesn't allow me to really get much of a clamp to hold the pieces tight together while the glue dries, so going to have to use screws to hold it together while the glue dries. Oh well, drill, countersink, fill with putty, paint later.
So tried to dry fit everything, and still some little tweaks to do,
Doesn't look too shabby... but looks can be deceiving, the top is level, but at this stage that is fairly unimportant. the more important thing is that vertical parts are .. vertical, which they actually aren't
They're off about 1/4-3/8" over the 3 foot span, and this is a much more critical issue that needs to be accounted for the top I can sand level as needed (and I still need a top deck that the tank will actually sand on). This is the step that I actually was dreading, it's easy to get level in one plane, but now I got 2 more planes to level off... and 4 separate legs to do it! (Plus there's also the center posts that I didn't even put in yet! . The upside is it seems that I can push the stand into a vertical position with easy, the problem is when I let go it naturally goes back to where it is. Now a couple sheets of plywood in those directions can help prevent this racking and hold it straight, but I didn't want to put the plywood in until I got the sump in (which I still need to make), plus I feel like it should stand vertical without being forced that way. So I need to try and figure out why it's doing this, it's probably something as simple as the wood where it slips into the dado joints isn't exactly level so it's causing the tilt, or the dado joints aren't perfectly level.
Either way, I think I'm going to have to use screws to hold this together to allow the glue to dry because the design of the legs with the internal "rib" frame doesn't allow me to really get much of a clamp to hold the pieces tight together while the glue dries, so going to have to use screws to hold it together while the glue dries. Oh well, drill, countersink, fill with putty, paint later.
xcaret
Guest
I feel you, making sure everything is the way was designed before the point of no return (glue)
You could try to square it by attaching a piece of plywood and either clamp it square or use brad nails just until the glue has dried.
When I made Rommel’s stand or maybe Bennett’s, something was off by a tiny bit, put the frame together and didn’t square up at any point; was very frustrated. Turns out the saw was off by a fraction of a degree and addingjoint after joint, everything was off. Had to square the very ends of all the frame and then it squared at every corner.
You could try to square it by attaching a piece of plywood and either clamp it square or use brad nails just until the glue has dried.
When I made Rommel’s stand or maybe Bennett’s, something was off by a tiny bit, put the frame together and didn’t square up at any point; was very frustrated. Turns out the saw was off by a fraction of a degree and addingjoint after joint, everything was off. Had to square the very ends of all the frame and then it squared at every corner.
sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
Yeah I have a feeling I'll just add the "racking" plywood now, attach with screws/nails and then remove it later after everything is squared up.
rygh
Guest
So a key question - Is your floor level???
It looks like you can screw some small 1x2 boards diagonally on the inside temporarily.
So no big deal with a few holes.
And that allows you to leave them there while you attach plywood.
I would suggest putting at least 2 sides of plywood on permanently, now.
You can still get sump in and work on it easily.
Even if you do clamp it and get it straight for now, with no sheer supports, if you even lean on it, it may bend.
It looks like you can screw some small 1x2 boards diagonally on the inside temporarily.
So no big deal with a few holes.
And that allows you to leave them there while you attach plywood.
I would suggest putting at least 2 sides of plywood on permanently, now.
You can still get sump in and work on it easily.
Even if you do clamp it and get it straight for now, with no sheer supports, if you even lean on it, it may bend.
sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
Hmm, I like the idea of the diagonal cross braces as temporary support.
Lets see if my geometry doesn't fail me, the legs are 3 feet tall, the long side is 4 feet tall... so I'll need a 5 foot long piece for the diagonal... at least in one plane, the other is 3 by 3... so 3 root 2 is a horrible number!
Although I just remember I need to rabbet out a groove for the plywood on one side... crap maybe even more sides... I need to think more about where the supporting plywood would go.
Lets see if my geometry doesn't fail me, the legs are 3 feet tall, the long side is 4 feet tall... so I'll need a 5 foot long piece for the diagonal... at least in one plane, the other is 3 by 3... so 3 root 2 is a horrible number!
Although I just remember I need to rabbet out a groove for the plywood on one side... crap maybe even more sides... I need to think more about where the supporting plywood would go.