Building some custom steel speaker stands, any ideas?

[dgorshe]

I have some extra tubing laying around, and am going to build some stands for my Yamaha NS-5 bookshelfs I recently bought. Any ideas for building them, I was thinking a quarter inch plate base, 4 pieces of 1x1 tubing for risers and filling the tubing with some sand before welding the cap on. Sound like a plan or any suggestions?

[dgorshe]

Was also thinking about making a similiar but shorter pair for my 4312's because i lost the wooden stands i had in a move. Would it be benificial to put them on an angle or is a flat stand alright?

[Bob Womack]

I have some extra tubing laying around, and am going to build some stands for my Yamaha NS-5 bookshelfs I recently bought. Any ideas for building them, I was thinking a quarter inch plate base, 4 pieces of 1x1 tubing for risers and filling the tubing with some sand before welding the cap on. Sound like a plan or any suggestions? A carpenter where I work came up with a marvelous design for speaker stands that we use throughout our plant: He uses PVC pipe from 4" to 8" in diameter (depending on the weight and size of the speaker) for a central, single column. He uses the PVC pipe as a pattern to mark the perimeter of a 2" deep wood plug (from 2x4, 2x6, or whatever size is required to fill the pipe end) for each end and bandsaws the plugs. He secures these plugs into each end with screws countersunk around the perimeter of the pipe and a thick swath of liquid nails to seal the perimeter. Before closing the last end of the pipe, he fills it with sand. When dry, that gives you a really stable central column that doesn't resonate.

He uses a table saw to cut a foot and top plate from 3/4" plywood, just smaller than the footprint of the speaker so that it disappears beneath the speaker. He veneers the edges of the plywood with tape veneer, trimmed with a single-edge razon blade when dry. His suggestion is to paint the whole assembly black, saying it disappears beneath the speaker. If you are looking for something a little nicer, you can use plywood with one furniture-grade side for the foot and plate and stain it. You could still paint the PVC. For that matter, you could obtain sheet veneer and cement it around the PVC column if you wish and stain that.

It's an alternative that is VERY successful for us at the studios - He's built about ten columns for us, for use in three rooms. I'm in the process of desgining some of these for my home as well. I'll probably go with stained feet and a painted column.

Bob