Tank Upgrade: Stand Refinishing

The stand that I got with the 75 gallon was still a nice stand. No cracks, missing pieces, or rotten boards. Just a lot of salt and crud caked on to the inside. With me being the handy man I am I figured I could refinish it and add some more support to it to be a good stand again. And that's exactly what I did. Here's some pictures of what it looked like when I got it.

It took a couple days with 60 grit sand paper and a rotary sander to get all the salt and the finish off. Took about 5 pieces of sand paper because after awhile the salt and finish turned into a paste. But I eventually got it all off. I forgot to take pictures of how it looked after it was sanded but this is the semi finished product. I put a nice red mahogany stain on it to match the other furniture in my room. I tried to put a clear coat of polyurethane on it but I think the stuff I used was a little to old and it made the stand look about 50 years old and look like it had wax all over it. I sanded it off with a 240 grit sand paper, applied a little more stain and it looks a lot better now.

Since I'm putting a 40 gallon tank on this stand I needed a top. I had some extra pine boards from when I made my pallet desk so I used those and joined them together, sanded them down and stained them. The supports are now in and the top is finished. All that needs to be done now is to nail the top to the stand and build the shelves that will be put on the inside.