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Everything DIY build

Loving the ingenuity, nice work! I’m keen to see the video of it working. As someone who works with stainless steel every day I appreciate the effort you’ve gone to - it’s not always an easy material to work with.

Two practical observations though. First, how are you going to clean the inside of such long pipe work when it invariably furs with detritus?

Second, the open area for the inlet pipe looks very small, particularly as you’ve added the mesh inside. A couple of leaves stuck to it during use, and you may find a significant drop in flow.

If it were me, I’d do away with the slots completely, cut out the entire opening where the slots are formed, resulting in a larger rectangular section of visible mesh for the water to draw through,

thanks for the input, the pipes furring up, I hope being stainless it will minimise that to an extent. even so, they are easily removed from the bar holders, it's just a grub screw on each holder and it slides off. I was thinking either running an outer of a bike brake cable down there with a bit of rag tied to the end and pulling it through or attaching to a drill and letting it flail about in the tube. another thing I thought of was taking them off and running a hose or pressure washer through it. failing that it would be easy enough to take both off and soak them in bleach. being metal tubes they ought to be forgiving to rough handling, unlike glass. the pipes on the inside of the stand will be clear silicone so I should get an indication of the state they're in.

the opening I have to admit is a little bit of a concern. you can't really see it on the photos but the gaps wrap around the majority of the pipe, which ought to be ok if a leaf sucks on there, unless it wraps around the whole pipe. I worked it out that the surface area of the gaps was over double the ID of the tube.

so it seemed fine but once I put the mesh in I did think it might be a bit of an obstruction. I tested by blowing down the pipe with the gaps covered but the end of the tube open then compared blowing down the tube with the end covered and gaps open. there was definitely a difference, so I think ideally I need more gaps in there. I was going to do 12 gaps originally but it took so long I settled with 6. I've thought of a quicker way to do this though and the current tube has some scratches on, so I may well redo it with a new bit of tube and 12 gaps.
 
Did a bit of foraging, my workshop is based on a small holding farm and all the heating is done by burning wood. So there’s stacks of logs everywhere. Just so happened that someone had split a load of ivy clad wood and left the ivy behind.

Pretty lucky, found exactly what I wanted straight away. It’s been sitting there for well over a year so it’s pretty dead and dried out. There are varying views with ivy wood, some say it’s fine and use without issue and others say don’t touch it.

This amount of wood would cost a small fortune if bought in a shop so I’ll take the chance.

Took a couple hours to get all the little bits off, kinda satisfying so time well spent.

Most of the wood is dead as a door nail but there were a couple of spots that were a little bright in the bark, so it will need a bit longer to dry before using.

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I’ve not posted much on here lately just as I’ve been doing small and not very interesting things like working out the routing of the pipework and making brackets etc.

Since this is a bit more relatable though I thought I would post a bit about the hardscape. I’ve been scratching all the tiny bits of old bark off and started to do a bit of arranging. Feel like I have a good mixture of height and front to back depth going on here. Would like to hear others opinions. There are four pieces here just balancing on each other. I’ll probably silicone them together or tie with fishing line.

I will be having a big chunk of java trident in the middle, moss tied to the branches, Christmas moss and maybe some rocks around the bottom, maybe rotala at the back and buce dotted around elsewhere. Just thoughts so far, I havnt looked much beyond the moss and java fern. The front will be relatively open/negative space with sand as I’ll be having dwarf corydoras and they need sand to forage.

It’s old ivy wood. Have tested it being intert and non toxic by sticking a branch in a jar with some daphnia for a couple weeks, they are still swimming about so think it’s safe.
 

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I got a little time in to do another little job today. I have this Lumini asta pendant lamp that I will be using for this tank. It will be suspended by a cable. The original fitting would require the cable to be tied or gripped with an Allen key type jobby and introduces another “thing”. In the interest of reducing things i have made something to make it a bit more streamlined.

This is the original fitting
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And a 10mm bolt fits happily in there instead

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I cut the bolt down, drilled a hole through the middle, turned the head in to something slimmer on the lathe and fit a cable clutch.

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And fits like this

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When it’s hanging the cable will just go directly in to the lamp with no obvious bolting or excess cable poking out. It’s very strong and also allows the height to be easily adjusted.
 
Small bit of progress after work today.

The last post showed how a bit of wire will be attaching to a luminaire. The bit I did today is to attach the other end of the wire.

The wire will be feeding through a thin stainless tube. The wire I’m using is stainless steel gear cable for a bike that has a small barrel end.

To do this I found an old rusty bolt which happened to be the right diameter.
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Chopped it down

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A bit of turning later...

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Fits like this

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When it’s all painted it should be fairly seamless

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Still been doing things with this but nothing much to post. It’s been a bit slow as other projects and life has got in the way and a fair amount of time has been spent scratching my head and trying to overcome some oversights.

This is where I’m at currently, finishing off the stand, which is nearly done.

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One of those oversights came from building the stand. The very first thing I did was the frame for the stand but didn’t think too hard about how the door would fit. I have settled on the door needing to be completely removed to get access to the stuff inside. So it will essentially slot in instead of swing out on a hinge. I could say this was a design choice as it gives me full wide access to the inside. But in reality it was just down to not considering how hinges would fit. I have big chunky 2x4 for the frame and it’s clad with 20mm sheets of wood for the external finishing. This simply doesn’t allow for discrete hinges. I tried wide fridge door hinges but the door would only open a couple cm before jamming up. So I’ve had to work out a way around this.

Another oversight was assuming that the tools I used were true... they kind of were at least. I spent ages getting the cladding on dead straight at the sides then lined up the front and it was unforgivably wonky. After staring at if for ages I realised it was at a small tilt and one of the top braces was the cause. It was about 1mm off being square, which caused the top and bottom to be out of true by about 10mm. After realising this and dismantling it, cutting a new section and reassembling it it was fine. Just a lot of time lost and set me back about a week.

All good lessons though. I’m not very experienced with wood working so it’s valuable stuff to encounter nonetheless. Another thing I’ve learnt is that sheets of wood bow more than you would like. Next step here is to brace the front with angle iron to keep it flat. The sides have been screwed on to the frame and I made a bunch of adjustable brackets to allow for making the sides dead straight.

Tomorrow I have a day off work and hope to have the holes cut in the side for the up and down/side to side outflow and inflow pipes, the door fitted and the wood part of it should be finished. Once that’s done I’ll just need to do the finishing and sealing and I can get it home and plumb/wire it up. That and I need to weld up the lighting fixture I’ve designed and paint it. After that there’s just the small bits to do.

One day I might even put some water in the tank!
 
Ok so today I got the door sorted and got all the panels to line up with equal panel gaps all round.

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The door solution has worked out pretty well and I’m rather happy with it. It was a bit of a bugger to line up but got there in the end.

I had to put a brace on the top edge of the front panel as it had a slight bow. This was just a length of angle iron screwed to the back of the front panel. On the frame part I screwed in a couple of neodymium magnets which can be adjusted to moderate the ‘sticking strength’ of the door. These stick to the angle iron and hold the door in place.

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At the bottom of the front panel I have a block of wood with a couple small lengths of stainless tube sticking out. These are just offcuts from the inlet/outlet pipework.

These slot in to another bit of angle iron which have a couple of V shapes cut out, this is bolted to the floor of the stand’s frame.

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So what happens here is the two bits of stainless pipe locate to the two V grooves and the top of the panel is pushed in and held in place with the magnets. Nice and simple and should accurately line up every time.

Took about 5 hours to make the bits and line all this up. All because I screwed something up early in the build and knocked everything out of alignment, as detailed in the previous post. Feels like it’s nearing the end though.
 
Got quite a big bit done today, cutting the slot in the side panel.

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It required figuring out where it needed to go and routering an angle to the inner side. This was to allow the pipe to swing and not hit the edges. I have been putting it off as it’s a new panel of wood and could have got it wrong. I measured it loads and needless to say, I cut the holes in the wrong place.

The slot should have been about 1cm lower so had to file it to allow it to fit properly. No idea how that happened. I’ll get another panel and redo if it bothers me.

This was probably the last bit I have been putting off. Not much left to do now.

The orange rollers jam up in the slot section which I suspected would happen, just need to raise the top rollers so they clear the slot and that will sort the problem. An easy fix.
 
Finished off the little jamming problem with the orange rollers earlier today. The bottom two rollers guide the pipe left and right where as the top two guide the whole little fixing that the rollers bolt to.

The fixing that holds the rollers is just a 10mm bit of polycarbonate with a bearing pressed in and that bolts to the little angle that’s fixed to the actuator. This bit being on a bearing allows the rollers to move around the pipe a bit and get the maximum travel but also caused them to move in to the slot in the wood and it would all jam up.

To remedy this I raised the top two rollers to a height above the slot. These now roll across a metal rail and gives a smooth and long sweep for the pipe to go left and right.

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Just need to drill the hole for the inflow pipe and I can get to setting fire to the front and side panels. That’s the next fun bit :twisted::twisted::twisted:
 
A touch more done today. Drilled the hole and fitted the outflow pipe.

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There’s nothing more to do on the stand, thank god. Except the aesthetic finish. From the start I always intended to do what’s called “shou sugi ban” to the wood. Shou Sugi Ban is a technique used for centuries by the Japanese. It’s simply burning the surface of the wood, it water/weather proofs and fire proofs the wood. I don’t really need either of these aspects but I like it aesthetically. I also want it to match a large floating sideboard I built which also is black. So it’s suitable and saves painting it.

I intended to burn it to the point where you get a crackled effect but having done it, I’m not so sure. This is a varnished test piece.

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The board is made of strips and it’s evident when burnt. Looks a bit messier than I hoped. Also is prone to bowing rather a lot, which isn’t good.

If the wood is burnt to the point it turns black, it looks more presentable.

One half the knots have had an extra bit of burning. The other half the knots are more present.

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I think I’ll probably go for the burn with knots more apparent, it just looks more natural and have more depth, it’s almost 3D

Anyways, that’s next. Burn it, varnish it and take it home to assemble!
 
I LOVE the Shou Sugi Ban effect, especially where it highlights the knots in the wood, it looks absolutely beautiful. Congratulations on a stunning cabinet!! The pipes are amazing too.
 
thanks, I appreciate the feedback!

i'll be going with the knot showing look I think. if this wood wasn't pine the crackle look would probably have come out better.
 
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thanks, I appreciate the feedback!

i'll be going with the knot showing look I think. if this wood wasn't pine the crackle look would probably have come out better.
I think the knot showing look is gorg, def the one to go with, the crackle is cool, but I did a lil google earlier and saw how you get the effects for different woods and you're right, it's better with other woods. It does look fab varnished though. Great to have lots of awesome choices :)

I did an internet deep dive on this technique yesterday morning after seeing your post and now when I redo my kitchen I'm 100% treating all the cabinets and wood there with it. It's so beautiful and special!! Can't wait to see your final cabinet.

Also I hadn't been through this thrad before, this whole build is stunning, those pipes are a perfect! Congratulations, excited to see how you masterfully do every piece. 😍
 
I think the knot showing look is gorg, def the one to go with, the crackle is cool, but I did a lil google earlier and saw how you get the effects for different woods and you're right, it's better with other woods. It does look fab varnished though. Great to have lots of awesome choices :)

I did an internet deep dive on this technique yesterday morning after seeing your post and now when I redo my kitchen I'm 100% treating all the cabinets and wood there with it. It's so beautiful and special!! Can't wait to see your final cabinet.

Also I hadn't been through this thrad before, this whole build is stunning, those pipes are a perfect! Congratulations, excited to see how you masterfully do every piece. 😍

A kitchen done this way would be something to see! You could reuse the existing doors if needing to do your kitchen on a budget.

Thanks for checking it out, it’s all starting to come together now. When I have all the electrics hooked up I will try sort out a video to show it all working
 
Varnished all the panels up, I’ll take it all home next week after work when dried fully.

Also did this, another drop checker to improve on the first I made.

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The first drop checker I made is on the right, it’s a bit too small.

Made it twice as long to allow for a bubble to form in the bottom and up the longer tube and allow more ph liquid to sit in the tube. Should also make it easier to view the colour of the liquid too. The two O rings help it sit straight in the end of the tube and plug it up, whilst allowing it to be easily removed and refitted for cleaning refilling with fresh liquid.
 
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