Re-facing my 300DD stand and canopy

[McPuff]

I used to have a 120 gal built into the wall. But, in July 2016 I found a very good deal and quickly bought a 300DD from another reefer. He had built his stand in place and we literally had to cut it in half to remove from his house. This picture shows the stand after moving and "rebuilding." It is vastly overbuilt (thankfully!) with 2x8s, 2x6s, and plywood and skinned with FRP.

You can see there was a single door on the left side (behind the stepladder) that was simply a panel of FRP held in place with magnets. Overall, this worked well but I never really liked it. The same was true of the canopy which was a 2x4 frame with FRP panels that hung in place. About a year ago, I built a new canopy frame out of 1x2s and it has always remained open with the goal of eventually putting some type of facade on it to keep light "pollution" down. :0)

Well I finally decided to make the change and re-face the stand. Given the way the stand was built, I had very few options. First, I removed the FRP and you can see just how much glue was used to secure those panels in place. Yuck!

I removed the little panels inside the opening which were used to secure the door panel. You can tell the opening is not "centered" on the left side and it almost goes to the middle of the stand. I was not able to make the same size opening on the right side but it's now much easier to access the right side underneath:

The opening on the right is 20 x 20" while the one on left was closer to 26 x 20". But I planned to skin the stand with 1/4" plywood anyway and figured I could even them out that way. It turned out pretty well, given my limitations.

Now the openings are centered on each side and are the same size. They are slightly rough but I'm not concerned by that. They won't show anyway. I also skinned the sides and now the glue from the FRP is completely hidden. Figured I better cover everything with a waterproof/resistant primer:

The difference isn't too drastic yet but at least it's more protected from splatter. The sump and equipment are all in the utility room to the left of the tank (where the 120 was located) so I don't really have to worry much about the humidity/moisture inside of the stand (hopefully!!).

Just this week I found (finally) some cabinet doors that seemed to be "winners" as far as this stand is concerned. The trick here is that two doors would look really bad as they are far too small to have that "furniture" feel. I opted to use 4 doors and wanted to find something as big as possible that would give us a nice look. Anyway, my wife found 16 x 28" doors at Menards that were unfinished. Perfect! Although I have to wait until Feb 11 for 3 of them to arrive (despite them saying they had 9 on hand. Grrrr...

Because there will be 4 doors that will cover much more than the openings I decided against traditional hinges. Instead, I'll be using 4 sets of heavy duty picture hanging cleats. This way, I'll simply remove the door altogether when I need to access underneath the tank (which is rare). Looking forward to the rough fit so I can give a better idea of what this will look like when completed. Will also add trim at the top to hide the aquarium frame, as well as a base trim to provide some top/bottom match. Now that I have the doors picked out, I can also pick out the trim.

Once the stand is complete I'll get moving on the canopy. Considering a complete rebuild as I feel it will be much easier than re-facing the stand while it is in place. With the stand, I had no choice.

More to come!

 

[Crabs McJones]

Following along, I love me a good stand building thread
@jsker check this one out

 

[hdsoftail1065]

Great size tank, I bet with the little refacing you have planned it's going to look great! Excellent idea on the picture frame cleats!

 

[McPuff]

Here is a pic of the current canopy frame I'm using. It's MUCH less built-up than the original... that even seems like an understatement. It's done a wonderful job of providing mostly unfettered access to the tank, allowing me to remove screen tops as necessary, and providing a means to mount my many light fixtures (9 total; second pic shows that enhancement). There is little doubt that I could skin the canopy without removing it... but I think a clean start would give me a lot more freedom to improve upon the current situation... there is always room for improvement. My goal is to have removable panels on the front and sides of the canopy to provide as much access as possible into the tank. The lack of a frontal cross-bar was purposely done with this in mind. The two uprights in the middle match up with the cross braces on the tank itself. Everything is supported by little rubber bumpers so the wood doesn't actually touch the frame. It all works very well. I'll trim out the bottom of the canopy to match the top of the stand, thereby hiding the aquarium frame completely. The removable panels are fully planned in my head but I'm yet to hold the physical proof in my hands. Will use the same cleat hangers as on the stand as this seems like the most elegant, yet useful option to gain full access. It will be nice to block out the light spill and avoid blinding myself when I accidentally look into one of many diodes. Perhaps even some reflective material on the inside of the panels will help to better light the shaded areas within the tank. Yes, good idea. :0) Once the canopy is fully installed, the tank itself should really pop. There will no longer be the need for a sign that reads, "Please direct your attention to the creatures WITHIN the tank, not the mess surrounding it!" Ha!

 

[Diamond1]

Looking good.

 

[McPuff]

Still waiting on the cabinet doors to arrive. Argh... Feb 11 is the expected date. Hard to just sit and wait but oh well, guess I can get some other maintenance performed. Once those arrive, I'll be heading out of the country for a few days. So it's at least two weeks until I can get some more work done. I do have a single door so maybe I can at least buy and cut the trim beforehand.

 

[McPuff]

Good news! The cabinet doors arrived a week early. Hoping to get the hanging brackets lined up over the weekend. Maybe even prime the doors and buy the trim. More pictures to come!

 

[McPuff]

Well, now you all know that I have been progressing very slowly on this refacing project! Did make some progress though in the past couple weeks. A minute here, a minute there. Finally added the trim... it needs to be fully attached with finishing nails as right now it's held in place with just a few nails on each piece. Going to have to caulk it, fill in all gaps, and then paint it. So far I'm pretty happy with how it's turning out. I call it a "5ft stand" because it looks really good at that distance. Once you move closer then one can see that it's not perfect by any means. Again, just working with what I was given but I do like it.

Trim added:

Cleat installed on the cabinet door:

Just a layout showing how the doors will cover most of the face of the stand. Now that I have the trim added, I can measure out and install the cleats on the stand itself. Then we'll be cooking with oil!!

 

[McPuff]

Well, this is taking entirely longer than I had ever anticipated... maybe I should have known better! :0)

FINALLY installed the cleats on the stand itself. After that I did a test install of the cabinet doors. There's a couple small gaps showing in the pic below but after a small amount of tweaking the screws in the door cleats they line up really well. I'll have to get another picture to show that.

One thing I did notice... the cleats will leave a mark when they slide against the stand itself. I may need to coat them with tape or something else that is very thin to try and reduce any scratching once the stand is painted.

It's really quite a different stand altogether. Still looks a bit rough but progress is there. Next steps are:

1) prime the doors
2) add a few more finishing nails to the trim
3) caulk the trim and fill any gaps, cover any screws
4) paint the stand

Now that it's getting warmer outside I can actually do the painting without much trouble. I'm using zero VOC primer and paint so fumes are only an issue for the smell factor. Anyway, I'm pretty excited by how this is turning out. Better than I thought to be honest. Not perfect but as I said before, it'll pass the 5 ft test. :0)

 

[Showcasegars]

You killed it on this refacing looks great !

 

[McPuff]

You killed it on this refacing looks great !

Thanks! It's coming along SLOWLY. Haven't primed the doors yet... hoping to do that one night this week.

 

[dantimdad]

Good job. I will consider those cleats if I use overlap doors on something in the future. Right now I use n52 magnets and french cleats.

 

[McPuff]

Good job. I will consider those cleats if I use overlap doors on something in the future. Right now I use n52 magnets and french cleats.

The one thing to consider with the cleats I used... I don't/won't remove the doors very often at all. I basically use the area underneath for storage of QT/TTM tanks and a couple boxes. I found that the cleats do leave marks on the primer and I'm hoping to find a way to minimize this. That way is probably "don't take the doors off very often!" :0) But another option is to add a small washer to create a small amount of space between the cleat and the stand itself. That should work.

 

[dantimdad]

I found that I was leaving marks in the primer on my stand with the magnets and french cleat system. Once I put on 3 coats of semigloss alkyd enamel, no more marks. I take the doors of quite often and nothing.

 

[McPuff]

I found that I was leaving marks in the primer on my stand with the magnets and french cleat system. Once I put on 3 coats of semigloss alkyd enamel, no more marks. I take the doors of quite often and nothing.

Excellent! Thank you.

 

[RobW]

What exactly did you use for cleats? I need to come up with something for my removable panels on my build. Regular doors with hinges are not going to work on my stand the way it is built. The doors or removable panels will actually look like a shaker style door. The problem is the overlaps. They wont swing like a door would. Upright supports on the four corners of my tank are 2x6 and the middle are 2x4. If I were to make standard overlap doors, gaps between the doors would be different and that would look funky. I only want an 1/8" to 3/16" gap between the panels so it matches the other cabinetry in the house. I was thinking of using magnetic or the kind that have the pins that push into a receiving clip.

 

[dantimdad]

https://www.amazon.com/Aluminum-Z-H...minum+cleats&qid=1556030869&s=gateway&sr=8-27

https://www.amazon.com/BIGTEDDY-Pic...hanging+cleat&qid=1556030908&s=gateway&sr=8-3

 

[McPuff]

What exactly did you use for cleats? I need to come up with something for my removable panels on my build. Regular doors with hinges are not going to work on my stand the way it is built. The doors or removable panels will actually look like a shaker style door. The problem is the overlaps. They wont swing like a door would. Upright supports on the four corners of my tank are 2x6 and the middle are 2x4. If I were to make standard overlap doors, gaps between the doors would be different and that would look funky. I only want an 1/8" to 3/16" gap between the panels so it matches the other cabinetry in the house. I was thinking of using magnetic or the kind that have the pins that push into a receiving clip.

You've nailed the reason I used cleats. They are basically just picture hanging cleats... look the same as French cleats. They are 4" aluminum "Z" shape and come in pairs. I think I paid $14 for 4 pairs. Really easy to install and use.

 

[McPuff]

Hi again everyone!! Wow, this has been quite a break in the action. I've been busy over the past month finishing up the stand and I think I can call it complete at this point. I finished priming the stand and doors back in the spring, along with caulking. This made a huge difference in itself. Now, I have also finished the painting... did two coats on everything and it looks pretty good. I'm very happy with how it turned out. Excuse the wrapping paper boxes in the corner! Nice thing about having a huge, covered stand is that I can also hide some presents in there! Wife and kids know to never open this as there's never anything interesting going on! :0)

As you can see, the canopy is still not done. BUT, I have been working on this as well. I fixed a small alignment issue on the right side so everything is true and square. I do have the materials in hand to make a skin as well. I changed my mind on this and decided to add a "shell" that I can fully remove. It will cover the front and about 2/3 of each side. Additionally, there will be 3 removable doors on the front and 1 on each side. Haven't decided yet if I want to use magnets or cleats to hold each door in place but this will make feedings and quick entry easy. If I need full access, then the whole canopy shell can be removed. This structure will be held in place by simply hanging on small pegs that will be attached to the upper side of the canopy frame. This will be a simply, yet robust solution to keep everything in place and easy to remove. More to come, and should be soon!!!

 

[McPuff]

A quick before and after:
BEFORE

AFTER

I should actually include a FTS as well... It's pretty crazy how much the corals have grown since my picture in March and April. AND... I have some Orphek Atlantiks that will soon join the party!