New Grow Bed - Grow Bed Stand

In this post, I will explain how I construct my grow bed stand. Like most DIY-ist out there, improvements from previous design is a must. My previous stand was made out of slotted angle iron and was designed badly with various newbie flaws. The new grow bed stand will also be made from angle iron but without those flaws.


Some Tips on Slotted Angle Iron...

Before I talk about my grow bed stand construction, I would like highlight a few things I learned when constructing my previous growbed stand:

Notice that a slotted angle iron bar consists of segments repeated throughout its length. Each segment is precisely 3" long. The red lines in the picture below marks the locations where cuts should be made. Due to this, it is important that all the dimensions in your design are in multiples of 3 inches. For example: 21", 30", 9", 63", etc...

Cutting points

When buying them, most hardware shop sells them in 10 feet bars only. That means one bar consists of exactly 40 repeated segments - no little extras at either ends! Before going to the shop, write down the number and lengths of all the pieces needed in your design on a piece of paper then plan out a cutting strategy that uses the least amount of full length bars and minimum wastage. At the shop, they will either let you use their cutting tool to cut them yourself or you can provide them with your measurements and have them cut them for you.

When cutting them, try to cut them precisely across the center of the oval hole at the cutting point. Too much error may prevent the holes from aligning properly when forming corner joints. For the sake of precision, I prefer to cut them myself. I don't trust the hands of others.

A cut made at the cutting point

A worker at the hardware shop I purchased these said that my cutting style is wrong. Well, I learned this tip from a website of a company that manufactures slotted angle iron!


Grow Bed Stand Construction

Materials:
4 x 30" slotted angle iron
4 x 21" slotted angle iron
6 x 36" slotted angle iron
4 x angle iron rubber caps
16 x corner brackets
60 x nuts & bolts

* notice that the lengths of all the angle iron are in multiples of 3".
* total angle iron purchased: 4 x 10 feet bars

I didn't took any pictures during assembling so here's a picture of the final product:

Pretty neat isn't it?
It looks a lot better than my previous stand. All the corners looks perfectly square. It looks like I could even lay a piece of plywood at the bottom section.



Thanks for reading!