Stand construction:
— Plywood/lumber hybrid, many elements of the RocketEngineer stand design, with a few personal touches made to suite my needs
(60”x20”x36”, 2x4 bottom frame, 2x4 vertical supports, 5ft 2x6 top frame header w/o center support, 2x6 top sides, load bearing plywood rear panel [no rear lumber header realistically possible with bulkhead hole locations])
I finally got around to pulling the old, questionable stand out, and removing the mediocre leveling plate I initially made for this tank today. This offered me wall access to start poking around behind outlet cover plates, refreshing my memory on how I wired everything a decade or so ago, and floor access to start subtractive leveling of the new stand’s bottom framing:
The leveling plate actually stayed fairly straight over the past year and change… it just could have used more bottom support than the every 15-ish inches I chose to do initially… it also adds an extra 3.25” to the stand’s final height unnecessarily!
In any case, I picked up some Douglas fir and redwood heartwood 2x4s, plus a Doug fir 2x6, and decided to start by getting my bottom frame scribed and shaved to level on the sloped concrete!
I opted to go with redwood heartwood 2x4 for the bottom frame, given that everything is on concrete, so one edge only being 2” tall isn’t going to affect anything from a compression standpoint… redwood heartwood was chosen for its exceptional rot resistance, as I expect this framing will see regular moisture exposure. (For context, redwood retaining walls around here regularly last over two decades in direct ground contact)
Here are the results of getting the “tall” side of the stand’s bottom framing, plus the 5ft rails built out, leveled out on the sloped concrete, then scribed and rough cut to the scribe line of the floors contour… remarkably close, considering!
I cut around 1/8” outside my scribe line via jigsaw, and honestly wish I had tried to just follow the line exactly the full distance… the bubbles above do look close, but that was before hours of test fitting, planing, belt sanding, a bit of concrete grinding, and rechecking level repeatedly… simply put, the last 4-6” of each 5ft 2x4 weren’t contoured in as I was cutting outside the target line to leave myself wiggle room to fine-tune… this meant I had to slowly, but surely contour them into floor contact, mostly via belt sander!
That said, here’s what roughly three hours of fine-tuning into it has me:
It’s getting to the point where I need to get the digital level out to fine-tune much further, before I go back through and flush out necessary sump support framing, and cut/plane the last two framing 2x4s down to match…
It seems like a lot of work, and it is… but, this yields me an extra 3.25” of interior stand space minimum, guaranteeing I have ~9” of access height between 17” tall sump rim and the stand’s top framing (while maintaining 36” stand total height) to pull even my largest skimmer (8.25”OD) out for maintenance!
(yes, my electrician buddy has already been booked for later this week to babysit me and help me make sure all the work is done to modern code [where relevant] in there before I properly button that wall and the surrounding area up!)
On to plywood:
— this is actually a bit of a tough one… realistically, I should be orienting my plywood so the exterior grains are vertical for a compressive dead load bearing application… however, standard 4’x8’ sheets have their grains oriented in the 8’ direction, and this is a 5’ wide stand…
— so, even if I could find a 4’x8’ sheet of plywood which had correct grain orientation, I need at least two pieces out of it; 60”x32.5”, and 60”x20”… this means I actually need two 4’X8’ sheets… and guess what? 3/4” marine grade plywood is $136/sheet at my local lumber yard these days…
— this means it’s time to get creative; true Baltic birch plywood is often sold in 5’x5’ sheets, which conveniently means one sheet would do both my rear panel and top plate!
— I called around… my local hardwood supplier couldn’t find any 18mm in stock anywhere in central California… however, they do have 12mm (~1/2”) 5’x5’ sheets in stock currently for $55/ea…
All this said, my stand plan has evolved slightly… I’m now looking at getting two 5’x5’x12mm sheets of Baltic birch, and cutting 32.5” off each sheet to laminate together into a 24mm (~15/16”) thick birch plywood rear panel, with the inner sheet notched to accept my 2x4 and 2x6 top plate cross bracing (steel hangers will be used to tie these to the front 2x6 header)! The remaining two sections of 12mm birch will become the stand’s top plate, and the cabinet floor on top of the redwood bottom framing… a very efficient use of materials that should work out nicely over this relatively small footprint (60”x20”)!
Cabinet doors:
I’ve been wanting to mess around with a stone door design for a while now, but am conscious that hinged doors will be a terrible idea on this build given its proximity to the room’s door… basically, they hinge out to dangle into the walkway anytime you’re working on the sump area, waiting to get tripped over or damaged every time you stand up and try to leave to get something…
That said, I’m liking the removable panel design… possibly with a magnetic retainer at the bottom, and a hanging hook system at the top… this would allow me to do the likes of a 1/2” thick granite or black quartz slab for each door, with mitered and kerf bent black anodized aluminum C-channel extrusion siliconed around the perimeter of each, serving as the framing, and robust armor against chips/cracks! Simple pocket door half-circle pulls could be employed as cabinet door handles, allowing me to unhook each door and set it aside while I do my work…
I’m getting ahead of myself, though… I don’t think I’ll actually be seriously considering custom cabinet door design until this tank is actually up and running, and I have some free time to kill!
