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MDF finishing for tank stands


Aquarium Dude

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any paint for me..... been doing it for 15 odd yrs and not had many problems.

i seen one i made 7yrs ago sell on trademe the other week and apart from the paint needing a few touch ups the mdf was still fine.....of course remember if your going to spill lots and lots of water you may have a few probs..... thats my thoughts..

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Always assume you will spill lots of water. I make up fibreglass resin and then paint it on, then paint over for the camper I am renovating. Thinking of doing the same but with marine gelcoat for the base I am about to fit to a new stand.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Be careful when using polyester resins and gelcoats with fishtank bits and pieces. They will leach styrene monomer solvent gasses for at least one month and this is very permeable in water. If you are going to use a resin for sealing my pick would be solvent free 2 part epoxy's.

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Any good quality bathroom paint will be fine but i think you will need a good undercoat to seal the mdf first. I think the last time i used mdf i got a alkid based undercoat and this stopped the mdf soaking up the paint. It will take a bit longer but the stand/lid will last so much longer.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sounds like most people here know what they are talking about. Just made a MDF cabinet for my 4ft tank using mostly 18mm MDF the primming part is the most important. There are alot of primers made for MDF I used 'White Knights' MDF Primer that I picked up from Bunnings here in ChCh.

The door wern't cut that straight, but hey was the first time I'd made one.

218762781.jpg

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Looks pretty good!

Did you use a router to get the nice curved edges, or did you use standard architraves(sp).

Yes they are architraves, the one on the top is to allow the tank to sit about 25mm deep behind it to hide the bottom of it. The one at the bottom is to hide the only non MDF part of the whole cabinet and thats the 8 x 2' x 4' pine supports along the bottom.

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I was looking at using archetraves but they do not come big enough to get the top looking like I want it to look, so I have decided to use a router with round bit to get the same shape.

mmmmmmmmmmmm router if you must. but I think the ones I got did the job pretty good. There where larger sizes available, up to about150mm, so you could build it up as you wish. I would love to have the knack to do a good router job, but ave never tried.

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