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Chayos00's 125g tank journal (Updated 10/17/2021)

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#1 · (Edited)
Welcome to my tank journal, yes it took me right about 3 years from the start of the stand to filling with water! The first 4 posts of this page will contain the majority of the updates to the build itself. Kind of a TLDR (too long didn't read) summary. This first post will contain the most recent updates to the tank.

The tank went into action with fish on 03/01/2017.

Fish List:
30ish - Royal Tetra or Kerri Tetra (Inpaichthys kerri)
4-6 - Pristella Tetras (Pristella maxillaris)
11 - Serpae Tetra (Hyphessobrycon eques)
12 - Black Neon Tetra - (Hyphessobrycon herbertaxelrodi)
6 - Glass Bloodfin Tetra - (Prionobrama filigera)
9 - Rummynose Tetra - (Hemigrammus bleheri)
9 - Glowlight Tetra - (Hemigrammus erythrozonus)
6 - Panda Cory - (Corydoras panda)
1 - Julii Cory - (Corydoras julii)
10ish - Oto - (Otocinclus vittatus)
3 - Clown Pleco - (Panaque maccus)
3 - Pea Puffers - (Carinotetraodon travancoricus)
3 or 4 - Zebra Loach - (Botia striata)
1 or 2 Dozen - Amano Shrimp - (Cardina multidentata)

Plant List:
Blyxa Japonica
Anubias Barteri Var. Nana Petite & some larger ones
Java Fern needle leaf (they called in long leaf, but it's the skinny leafs looking one I wanted)
Java Fern
Amazon Sword
Amazon Red Sword


FTS T minus 1 days till fish, or Day # -1 (02/28/2017)



FTS - Day 1691 - 10/17/2021

Glass Bloodfin Tetra, Glowlight Tetra, & Black Neon Tetra's:

Glass Bloodfin Tetra:

Panda Cory:

QT Rack (4 20g's and 1 100g tank, which has a bunch of manzanita wood soaking that I just put in on Friday and has the water funky at the moment)
 
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#2 · (Edited)
Build Update Post #1

(Former beginning post)
Hello all! Thanks for checking out my build.

I started with an aquarium as a kid getting a 20g tank when I was a little kid and had it till about 2006. I never really did much for having good looking aquascaping in the past, but early last year my coworker showed me planted aquascaping and I was amazed and wanted to get back into having a tank. I ended up with a Tetra 3g cube that I have running on my desk at home, I have a Betta, 2 dwarf frogs, some nerite snails, and some ghost shrimp (provided they don't disappear, I think the betta eats them). I'm keeping that one heavily planted in a low tech setup, with some Java Fern, Anubis Nana, and some Ludwigia. So I finally talked my wife into getting another larger tank and that's when I went on the craigslist hunt for what I describe below.

So I've picked up a former 125g saltwater tank from a craigslist deal for about $325. It included the stand, canopy, and some crappy equipment. Turns out the stand was junk and so was the equipment. I attempted to recover the stand, but there was an accident destroying the stand while I attempted to get it prepped for refinishing.

My tank plan is to be a heavily planted community tank that is more so on the low tech side of things. Fish and plants to be determined later. I don't want to add CO2, but part of me wants to, so maybe one day after getting the tank up and running for a year or so. For the sump I'm going to keep it strictly filtration. I was initially thinking of running some biomedia, filter floss, and some ceramic rings. But yesterday I came across poret filter media and I'm now not sure exactly what I want to do. Oh well I've got time still.

I've been browsing the reef community on several forums and I'm finding some great ideas about how to design the sump and other features. For example splitting the heater into 2-3 units versus one giant heater as I've determined from an article on the BeanAnimal site that I need anywhere from 900w down to about 180w depending upon the room temps. I used 68*F for a low and 74*F for the high room temp with a tank estimated temp of 78*F. However I never run my house that low in the winter, yes I live in the desert and it usually doesn't get too cold here and if it does, you bet I'm using my homes heater!! On average I should need only 200-300w to maintain the tank, yes that is not including the lighting or the pump in the sump tank.

I also was reading an article about power strips and after reading that article I'm going to make my own power panel in the stand using standard home outlets, yes I'll seal everything for moisture. I also have an electronics background so this won't be an issue for me. I might have to end up bringing in a dedicated power line for the aquarium, as my den has my PC and is only a 15A circuit as well as who knows what else the builder wired into that circuit. Once I get all my equipment figured out I'll do the math and see how much power this thing is going to draw to determine if I need the dedicated circuit. I do however want to get the sump running with a battery backup for temporary power outages, mainly during monsoon season when we can get some nasty storms that can knock the power out.

On to the tank build:

Here's the tank being leak tested/decontaminated using 10ppm bleach being run overnight. As I wanted to ensure there was no cross over from the saltwater bacterium. This was the "filter" they were running on their tank, it's a reef octopus skimmer, but it worked for a great circulation pump for me @ 2000L/hr or ~500gph.


Stand after I removed the damaged MDF from where they let the saltwater get under the tank.


I sanded the stand down to remove the "painted" on stain that they tried to restain the stand with. As well as I wanted to beef up the structure so I built a 2x4 header to strengthen this stand.


I made the mistake of putting the front and back headers together before putting them in the stand and one got stuck while going in and was hanging in the air, I turned my back to go flip the garage light switch and the whole thing fell over and popped every single nail that was used to put it together out. So this is what remains of the stand..... Well this was before I took it camping with me and turned it into a bond fire!!



So I started from scratch on the stand build after a two month frustration hiatus. I did lots of googling stand builds and finally decided upon a design for the framing. Here is where it currently sits. The front two support beams are only just wedged in as I'm still deciding how I'm going to do my cabinet doors. The dimensions for the stand are 73"L x 24"D, as one day I plan to use this stand in the hope of coming across a 240g tank that's 24" deep.


So I couldn't decide upon what I wanted to cover the exterior with so I went hunting for some better lumber sources than Lowes or Home Depot. I found this store on the southside of town with over 100 varieties of wood to choose from. Most of it was rough cut 4/4 boards that were from 6" -12" in width, but as I'm not a skilled woodworker I had no idea how to use 98% of what they sold. The place is Woodworkers Source Your Friendly Lumber Supplier. So due to the fact that the venered wood sheets I would use were in the $100-150 range, I decided I would not go that route and instead head back to the big box stores. So after going and looking with my wife I am going to use Pine, as I can find decent pine trim pieces between Lowes & HD.

Equipment List:

I know I'm missing some stuff, but it's late and my brain is starting to shut down on me. More to come as the build goes on!
 
#3 · (Edited)
Build Update Post #2

Time for that future update. Part 1.

I do have more detailed pictures during the build of the canopy, but I didn't post every one of them, however if someone asks I can.

Lots of searching lead me to build what I did for the canopy, didn't draw anything up first. Also if you wonder why the canopy back rail is further in than to the full back, it's because I designed this to be 24" deep for a future upgrade to a 180G tank, rail is set to the depth of the 125g tank.

Stand prior to interior painting


Post painting/sealing


Making the outer skin


Base skinned


Base skinned side shot (had of a bit of an issue with true square, so you'll see some defects if you look hard enough..... but please don't :icon_redf:icon_redf:icon_redf I will fix this once I start prepping the wood for stain)


Canopy without the front door/lid


Canopy with front hinged lid


Canopy with front hinged lid


Canopy side shot w/lid


Canopy frame on tank






 
#4 · (Edited)
Build Update Post #3

Wow it's been a LONG time since I've updated this post. But also had lots of life activities keeping me busy.

So the physical build of the stand is pretty much done at this point. I'm currently working on my urethane coating on the stand at this point, which has been a challenge all on it's own.

The trim was a pain for me to get right. Took a while to figure out the 45° cuts to make them butt up together, the canopy isn't perfect, but I got the stand much more accurate. I found some trim that I thought looked good at Home Depot. The first go round, I cut it all too short, so back to the store to do it again.... but I got it right at that point. You might notice a pieces of wood along the top of the canopy, well those are what I used to nail the canopy trim to hold it to. The front piece has one along the whole top as well.

For the staining method I used was as per this article. However I do have this to say about using gel stain, after the first coat is applied it's like attempting to lightly paint a little on so that you aren't just wasting your time and wiping it right off. So after getting the darkness I liked, I moved on to putting the Arm-R-Seal satin topcoat on. Had some issues that reddit's r/woodworking was able to point me in the right direction. So right now I'm at the point where I'm building up my topcoat layers to make it thick enough of a protective coating.

The doors took some thinking of how I was to make mount the panel insert in the center of the door. I finally settled on using these really short nail gun nails and basically stapling them into the outer frame. I put several straight into the front of the frame and then after that I went between them and put others at a 45° angle to hold the panels in place. I then got to staining the doors after the stand and the canopy as I was limited on space to set everything.

The inside of the canopy will get painted white, just haven't gotten to that part yet. I'm also going to have to put another layer inside the stand as I've gotten some of the gel stain on the paint that stained it brown.

So yeah, I think that's about where I'm up to on this.













First bit of coloring on the stand. I believe this is just the wood dye at this point.








Worked on the doors after the canopy and stand due to space issue, so I was trying to color match as best I could.


Had some issues with the Arm-R-Seal satin after a few coats it got cloudy, after another post online it was recommended to go with gloss as that doesn't have any flatteners it in causing cloudy looking seal issues. So once I've got enough protection on, I'll put on a coat of semi-gloss or satin, depending upon what my test samples turn out like.






 
#5 · (Edited)
Final Build Update Post #4

So time for another update! The stand and canopy build is finally finished!! I have the final coat of urethane on and if there's any imperfections, I don't care anymore I am done! LOL I am FINALLY done! I way over did this to make it a furniture grade stand. I can say I will never do that again!! However I hope you like it! Now to get the tank resealed, drilled, plumbed, and my overflow setup!


















DIY Overflow:
Here's my DIY on my ghost overflow that I'm making. I initially was going to do a glass setup till I saw Joey (King of DIY) make one out of acrylic for his goldfish tank and I was inspired. However as I didn't have a table saw, I was able to find a friend who did and he let me borrow it, however I upgraded the blade to a 10" 90 tooth one to get the smoothest cuts I could get. One quick tip was to slide the piece back and forth once the last tooth cut was made to smooth out the blades rough cut edges. I don't have it glued up yet, but will be doing so as soon as I get the mounting surface prepped for gluing. Here's the pics of the overflow so far.

Internal overflow box - 36" L x 5" H x 2" D
External plumbing box - 23" L x 7" H x 6" D
1.5" bulkheads, 3 to be drilled in the tank to hold the overflows together and 3 for the beananimal drain system I will be using.

I wanted to try a router, but the setup I was working with wasn't keeping it stable enough to get straight cuts, however I have since seen a method that would have probably worked if I ever do it again.

Internal box has the teeth, the outside box is the other one.


Close up of the inside teeth


Next is the overflow, this is finally done! WOOT WOOT!! I have a friend coming over today to help place the tank on the stand so I can get the plumbing for the overflow started.










Power Panel Update:
Here's one of the ADJ PC-100A


Two panels mounted, if a third is needed then I can use the center door to mount another one.


Here's an up close view of one where it's mounted.


A shot from the back showing the board I used to get the panel at the right height. Notice there's no mounting hardware visible from under the power panel? LOL




I'm about 90%+ done now. Just trying to figure out some final details on my plumbing before flooding the setup and seeing if it holds water. Which will run in the garage for about 2 weeks before it comes in the house. It's been a long journey, but glad it's almost done!!!

I also have my DIY LED light fixture figured out, I've got all parts on hand now, minus the wiring. Which I will work on that while I'm leak testing the system.

This picture does it no justice as to how big this setup really is. It's a 125g tank which is 72" long by 18" wide. The stand is right at 7 feet tall and 6'8" wide.


More updates below.
Here's the inside of the stand as viewed from the back side.


The entire back side.


View of the return pipe from the top.


View of the return from inside the tank.


Pipe from the pump to bypass the tank as needed, or to adjust the flow through the tank.


Pump plumbing.




Last night I worked on the overflow plumbing some to get it tuned just right. I've gotten the overflow quiet and starting a full flow within 30 seconds or so.

My return pump is a Jebao DC12000 that I got about 2 years ago or so. I know I've seen reviews about them either being loud or not lasting or something else wrong. There's a bit of a turbine type sound to it, but in the garage the back is wide open, so not sure how it will sound in the house. The most noise is coming from the sump divider where the return water comes in, as it's coming over the edge and falling down about 2" there's an air bubble under it and it churns the water and makes a bit of water fall type noise. So anyway's I tested the return pump flow going into the tank last night using a 5 gallon bucket and some additional tubing to direct the flow where needed. I had my wife time me filling the bucket. There's 6 speeds on this pump and I tested the flow and power consumption at each setting.

I assume the total water volume would be about 160 gallons in the 180 total possible system.
6 - 99 watts - 12.97 seconds - 1387.81 gph - 8.67x turnover rate
5 - 82 watts - 14.57 seconds - 1235.41 gph - 7.72x turnover rate
4 - 66 watts - 17.34 seconds - 1038.06 gph - 6.48x turnover rate
3 - 50 watts - 19.75 seconds - 911.39 gph - 5.69x turnover rate
2 - 37 watts - 24.10 seconds - 746.88 gph - 4.66x turnover rate
1 - 27 watts - 32.30 seconds - 557.27 gph - 3.48x turnover rate

I'm thinking of running the pump at either speeds of 4 or 5, however as the tank is currently bare, I can't really see how the flow of water at that rate will affect the substrate or the plants or fish.

Now I never saw any other DC pumps when I bought this a few years ago, however I've now seen the Ecotech Marine DC pumps and besides for their cost, I wonder if I should save up some money to buy one of their pumps in case or for when the Jebao pump may go out. What sucks is that depending upon the pump it's either $349 (M1) or $449 (L1).



Alright another big update! I move the tank/stand inside the house! Woot Woot! I got the tank in the house before baby #2 is here next week.... OMG Next week?!?! I'm not ready for that yet! LOL

I got the lift cylinders from Western Marine that are Taylor Made and are supposedly rated for marine use, well I picked up two 20lbs cylinders as not knowing anything about cylinders and I couldn't get the formula, or was too lazy to try, I just went with about what the lid weighed. Well it lifts easier, but doesn't hold it up. So I ordered 2 of 40lbs and 2 60lbs shocks to hope that one of these will hold the damned thing! Before the current shocks the doors weighed in at about 40lbs but now they are coming in at 15lbs, so hopefully the 40lbs shocks will do the trick. Luckily there's a 30 day window to return what I don't need. So hopefully one of these shocks coming in tomorrow will be the right ones I need.

Going through the front door!


Inside the entryway.


Damn it, there's always gotta be a touch of carnage! When moving off the furniture dolly from outside the house as we were pushing it in this drug on the dolly and pulled right out from the brad nails that were holding it on. Oh well.... $hit happens! I will be gluing it back on.


Time to check level.... wait what?!


Holy crap I didn't even have to level the stand! This is inside the bottom of the tank, she's level! Wow!!! I'm surprised the guys laying the foundation did it right in this house, as my previous house was way off when my dad and I tiled the place.


Here she is in the den. Luckily the piece that broke off is in the back corner, however it will get fixed soon. (I know the flag in the flag case isn't folded correctly, but I've never gotten around to fixing it after my dad gave it to me. I'll get it one day.)


Anyone coming to my front door will get to see a nice treat while they wait for me to get to the door now. (The round purple on the right side of the pic is my wife's belly, she's about 38 or 39 weeks along.)
 
#7 ·
No those 4 spots are left blank on purpose so that way as I get more good updates I can edit those posts going forward. That way instead of all having to go through the entire thread when there are multiple pages it will be all on the first page.
 
#8 ·
To save you some grief, don't go 1.5" on all your drains. I have almost the exact same setup, 1.5" primary siphon for the GPH you'll probably end up running will not work well.

If I had it to do over, I'd do 1" on the primary, ensure I was running at least 800-900GPH net (after losses), and use 1.5" for the secondary/emergency.

Also - just limiting the intake on the primary doesn't work. You'd need to limit the size of the drain pipe to allow the siphon to maintain some consistency.

Sub'd! Good luck!
 
#9 ·
I was just looking at your build thread last night. Thanks for the tip on downsizing the main siphon line. I'll keep the bulkhead at the 1.5" size and then just adapt down to a 1" line.
 
#10 ·
A few weeks ago I was out camping in the mountains where we happen to have Manzanita wood all around and I picked up a piece that I liked. Yes they are a bit on the large size, but nothing that some trimming down won't fix. I also found an old starter mine (only went about 200 feet in and then stopped) in the area that had some neat looking rock pieces that may get used as well. Yes I will ensure they are "cured" and cleaned as much as possible.

Manzanita Wood - This still requires some trimming to fit in the tank, but it's close. My coworker tells me I should take it to get sandblasted, but I'd have to do some hunting to find someone who does this.


Here's another piece I found laying around that I thought looked cool! Through the tall piece it's semi hollow as well as the under side if it sat on the ground has some clearance for a hiding spot for some fish that likes to hide.


I picked up a water tank heater from Amazon that should heat up some water past 150*F to try and help me to try and boil the wood. I just need to get a container large enough to fit the wood. Also would a brute trash can handle the high temp water if that's all I can find? Also with the heat I would imagine something would leach out of it too. I saw a guy on CraigsList selling a 55g food grade metal drum that was used for his rainwater collection, would something like that be best to use?
 
#11 ·
Very cool. Can't wait to see what you do with it all.

As for the boiling of the driftwood. Any container will be fine as long as it's clean and holds water. Just make sure that the wood is and has been dead for a while so it doesn't leak sap or any of that sort.
 
#13 ·
So the large brute trash can was about $45 bucks for the 44g container. I ended up contacting the guy from craigslist and he still has the 55g metal drum and he's selling it for $24 so I am going to go take a look at it today. Half the price and being metal I won't have to worry about if the plastic will have any issues heating up.

For the non Manzanita wood I can tell that's been dead a while. But not really sure on the Manzanita piece. However there it was in a large group of dead wood. I want to get them starting to soak soon to get them fully water logged and cured.




Pressure washer for the driftwood if you want to clean it up. Sand blasting would cost a good chunk, and would probably end up destroying the wood (if anyone even took the job).
Ah never thought of pressure washing! I might go hit up a car wash and test it out on a branch that I didn't post a picture of on a piece I picked up a few months earlier that turned out to be WAY TOO large. If that works and looks good I may do that on the one I posted the picture of. Thanks for the idea!
 
#14 ·
Hey guys, I've been trying to figure out how I should water proof my DIY aquarium stand structure. I'm not talking about the exterior finish wood, but the internal structure. My initial thought was some Thompson's water sealer, but I've seen a few few builds using Killz. I do like the idea of painting the stand white on the inside to help see what I'll have inside. Thoughts? Killz and some white paint?? If Killz which variety of it?
 
#15 ·
So on Wednesday I ordered a number of items, and I got my Jeabo DC-12000 that came all the way from China on Friday afternoon. Again that was placed on Wednesday night around 10pm Arizona time and got it FRIDAY!! Wow I'm impressed by Fish-Street.com!!!

From Amazon some items shipped from a town 100 miles away and it got here on Friday as well.

So far I've gotten:
Jaebo DC-12000
Ranco Temp Controller
Tom's Dip and Pour container (temporary fish holder cup)
 
#17 ·
Thanks! I've posted this question across 3 different aquarium forums and I am getting some good feedback about what to do. Hearing Thompson's is no good and polyurethane is not too. Either Kilz and paint or just layers of a primer/paint. Or one guy even mentioned using an epoxy finish for sealing off a pan on the bottom.

I'll have to checkout the local waste management if they are anywhere near me and see what I find there.

Yeah I really do like that driftwood also. On my first hunt for wood I grabbed some pieces that are just way too big to make it work. However so am going to use those pieces to experiment on with pressure washing.... that is if my buddy figures out if one of his two machines work. Otherwise I might have to go use the local car wash, but would rather not for the soap that's probably in those lines. I also picked up a 55g drum from craigslist to soak my wood and try to boil it.
 
#19 ·
Thanks to both! My dobe is 12 and she's still my baby!
 
#20 · (Edited)
I got the 1000w bucket heater yesterday and so I trimmed up the driftwood to fit the tank. I had to break out my chainsaw and trim about 3-6" from the bottom of the stump to keep the top of the log in the tank. I also had to break off a number of the branches to get the branch setup in the tank. So with the wood trimmed and the 55g drum cleaned out. It's time to start the soaking!! So with the heater in the tank for a few hours the water went from ~70*F up to 100+*F. However when my wife unplugged it a few hours later she commented to me how the extension chord was quite warm. The heater was pulling right @ 1000-1015 watts of power, so that equates to about 8.4A @ 120VAC. The chord is a 12 gauge ridgid branded chord. I do have a 100 foot 10 gauge chord that I'm going to run out to my power panel to use the 20A circuit I have wired into an outlet coming from the bottom of the box. This way if there is overheating issues, then that extension chord can burn up outside and not through the walls of my house!!!
 
#21 ·
Got my 3 200W Jager heaters yesterday along with my bulkheads from bulkreefsupply.com. Today I got my hole saw guide for drilling the glass.

On a side note that 55 gallon drum is plumb full of some nasty tannins! Before dumping it I'm curious to see what my ph will be. I'm going to dump the barrel about once a week due to it being a TON of water to drain each time. I do have that reef octopus skimmer "stirring" the water up, and that's getting some nasty black stuff foaming up through the little catch tray. Seeing what this thing is pulling out of this barrel, I might test it with my tank once I get it up and running.

I've also been doing of thinking about how I'm going to design the stand. I'm probably going to go with 2 doors that are about 32W x 30T. The only issues is finding material that would be the proper width to make this work.
 
#22 ·
How do you like your Jebao 1200? I am looking to replace my current external pump with something wake because its so noisy. I was looking at the variable speed pumps so I can fine tune my flow, I also really like the "feed" button on there. The aquarium I am looking to use it on is a 180 gallon, so with the sump around 200 gallons total, and would be running about 8 feet of tubing for each over flow. Was thinking about getting two pumps, one for each return line, but wanted to see what your experience with this pump was.

Bet regards,
AQ
 
#23 ·
Unfortunately I don't have my tank up and running yet. I am still building the stand for the tank, which I need to post some updates for. all I have done so far for the pump was to run a test on it while sitting in a tub of water to ensure proper functionality.
 
#24 · (Edited)

Here is my wood soaking in a 55g drum with a reef octopus skimmer acting as a pump to circulate the water. I have my three heaters in the barrel also as I noticed that the tannins were released quicker at higher temps versus cooler water. So far it's been soaking for about a month and a half. I used bleach about 3 weeks ago and that $hit smell went away after that, man that sure made the garage reek!!


Last week I finally picked the needed wood to skin the stand. You can also see the barrel I have for soaking the wood. I insulated it as I was trying to boil the water and sitting on the concrete floor sapped all the heat out of it. plus I am sure it lost a bunch of heat throw the side walls too.


I finally figured out the proper spacing and the doors that I am going to use. So everything is finally screwed into place. The board on the bottom is screwed down, just didn't take an after picture of that step.

Tonight I am going to work on making the tub in the bottom of the stand for any accidental overflows. With the 55g tank there it will hold 14-15 gallons of water using 2x4's.

I just have to maintain motivation!
 
#25 ·
Alright so massive update time! So I took week of of work to get some progress done on the stand and canopy. See the 2nd post for an update. Now it's time to make the cabinet doors!

Full Stand & Canopy Shot


Stand Shot


Canopy Shot
 
#27 ·
Thank you very much for your kind words! I can't wait myself to see how this setup goes!! Just need to get back into action to get those doors done, but other things keep getting in the way of this project. I wish I had another week to take of to finish it!
 
#29 ·
No more work has been done to the stand yet. I've just been busy and the days I have had free were spent relaxing or getting other more urgent matters done. Yazmin is doing good also! Thanks for asking about her!
Hopefully I can get the cabinet doors done soon!
 
#31 ·
Thanks! She is my baby girl who's 12.5 years old!
 
#33 ·
Yeah she is pretty healthy, however she does have a neurological degenerative issue that is causing her to drag her feet some, but not too bad at this point. So I am very thankful that is her only issue! Hopefully it doesn't get to the point of her not being able to walk or control her bodily functions back there.
 
#34 ·
So last weekend I started to make the cabinet doors, yes I know finally! So initially I planned on making shaker style doors, but instead of the traditional doors I was going to miter the corners at 45* angles, however I could not get the saw calibrated enough to get the proper 45 degrees to be perfect. So I decided to go with the traditional look to the doors. So now all that wood that I had previously routed and planned to just cut at 45's no longer will work. So long story short is I got the door frames all cut out and just need to do some more routing on the framing and put it together, then of course cut out the insert on the panels.
 
#35 ·
Wow it's been a LONG time since I've updated this post. But also had lots of life activities keeping me busy.

So the physical build of the stand is pretty much done at this point. I'm currently working on my urethane coating on the stand at this point, which has been a challenge all on it's own.

The trim was a pain for me to get right. Took a while to figure out the 45° cuts to make them butt up together, the canopy isn't perfect, but I got the stand much more accurate. I found some trim that I thought looked good at Home Depot. The first go round, I cut it all too short, so back to the store to do it again.... but I got it right at that point. You might notice a pieces of wood along the top of the canopy, well those are what I used to nail the canopy trim to hold it to. The front piece has one along the whole top as well.

For the staining method I used was as per this article. However I do have this to say about using gel stain, after the first coat is applied it's like attempting to lightly paint a little on so that you aren't just wasting your time and wiping it right off. So after getting the darkness I liked, I moved on to putting the Arm-R-Seal satin topcoat on. Had some issues that reddit's r/woodworking was able to point me in the right direction. So right now I'm at the point where I'm building up my topcoat layers to make it thick enough of a protective coating.

Had some issues with the Arm-R-Seal satin after a few coats it got cloudy, after another post online it was recommended to go with gloss as that doesn't have any flatteners it in causing cloudy looking seal issues. So once I've got enough protection on, I'll put on a coat of semi-gloss or satin, depending upon what my test samples turn out like.

The doors took some thinking of how I was to make mount the panel insert in the center of the door. I finally settled on using these really short nail gun nails and basically stapling them into the outer frame. I put several straight into the front of the frame and then after that I went between them and put others at a 45° angle to hold the panels in place. I then got to staining the doors after the stand and the canopy as I was limited on space to set everything.

The inside of the canopy will get painted white, just haven't gotten to that part yet. I'm also going to have to put another layer inside the stand as I've gotten some of the gel stain on the paint that stained it brown.

So yeah, I think that's about where I'm up to on this.

Pics are updated on post number 3.

Most recent pics taken today.






 
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