I need to make a metal table that can take a lot of weight.

Hi all

I think I have finally come up with a plan for my new speaker stands in my recording studio...!

I need to make speaker stands that have a heavy mass and high density (so that they do not transmit sound or resonate). But I also need to have some space at the bottom to site my PA speakers...

Here's an awfully crude and out of scale mock drawing:


The red part will be a metal table, the grey a concrete block. I had racked my brains for how to make the table part - first I thought wood, then I was going to have a concrete table made. But then, whilst at work having a fag (tut tut) I was looking at the heavy duty metal gate and thought - hmmmmm - I can use that!

But I'm not even sure what metal the gate is from. It's very heavy duty and weighs loads. I'm sure a table made of that would have no problem taking the weight of the concrete block and speaker....

What I have no clue about is where I could go to have something like this made. My first thought was a fence/gate maker, but I'm not sure. So I thought I'd ask on here. As you can probably gather, I'm quite clueless in this area! So any pointers would be great.

Cheers

Max

Scaffold pole / Kee Klamp

If you cast the concrete in a block you could just leave the legs sticking up out of the mould, then turn it upside down.

You will have a massive point load where the legs meet the floor though, so you probably need a base as well.

Thanks for the reply.

Good point about the weight. I had questioned this in my mind. The room is first floor, and the flooring is chipboard. Do you think that without a base there is a chance of a leg (or two!!) going through the floor? Is it simply a case of the more contact area with the floor - the more the weight is distributed over the area? If so, maybe I'll use a paving slab. The problem with flat surfaces on the floor is they make the structure less stable. Hmmmm - dilemma!

I'll take a look at the link, but I really want the legs to be as thin and small as possible....

I know nothing about metal work. If I got strong enough metal (like in the gate I mentioned) would welding it together to form the structure be string enough? And if so, where should I look to get this done.

Many thanks

Max

A gate is usually a rigid array of tubes that gets its rigidity from being in an array. A single tube eg a table leg is going to have to be a lot more substantial.

Re point loading, if you can put substantial screws into the joists then you can use spike ends onto the screwheads to get a stable support that doesn't disappear through the floor. A triangular rather than quadrilateral arrangement for the feet will always be stable.

A welded joint should be as strong as the metal, which if it's thin tube won't be very strong in bending. Kee Klamp you just cut to length and bolt together.

Thanks again for the reply and all your help.

So, would a triangular table actually be stronger and more stable than a square/rectangular one? In a way, triangular would actually work better for me, although I should point out that the concrete block on top of the table would still need to be square.

RE: weight issues. Just to clarify, I'm thinking the concrete will prob be around 80kg. Let's call it 100kg to be safe. The speaker is 15kg. The metal stand? - let's say 10kg. So the total weight for one stand/structure will be 125kg - probably less but best to overestimate.

So when I come to work out if this is safe etc., what do I need to consider? I would like to read up about this but I'm not sure what the relevant terms are to put into google....

At all costs I don't want anything going through the floor!!! The stand will be near the wall which the floor joists go into. The furtherest leg will be around 50cm from the wall, the nearest around 10cm away. No legs would actually be directly on top of joists.

I would rather not have a base unless I have to.

RE: materials.... what would the strongest metal be that would allow me to have the legs as thin as possible? Wrought iron? Steel? I'm not at work this week but I've asked a colleague to take a pic of the gate - which I'll add once I have it. +1 for modern technology!

Here are those pics:

Do you really need that concrete block Serious question as I`m a bit of an amateur audiophile and learning But I wondered if lead lining of a box would do with less weight - maybe even filling with acoustic absorbing stuff too Don`t want to buy a Goodmans Audiom 60 bass speaker, do you

you could probably bend the rods on those gates with your bare hands.

The problem is that individual legs have no lateral bracing and will collapse as soon as there is a load which starts bending them.

If you made it as an open-fronted (5 sided) cube then you could do it in chipboard quite easily, because the sides of the cube brace each other.

Try it as a cube with no back though and the sides will easily go squinty.

Nige F said:

Do you really need that concrete block Serious question as I`m a bit of an amateur audiophile and learning But I wondered if lead lining of a box would do with less weight - maybe even filling with acoustic absorbing stuff too Don`t want to buy a Goodmans Audiom 60 bass speaker, do you

Click to expand...

Hi Nige

I'm not sure, but we might be talking about slightly separate things here. The idea of the concrete base is to give the speaker as much mass/weight as possible to sit on. You want the stand to be as sturdy as possible to prevent the speaker enclosure moving in sympathy to low frequencies. Only the driver should move. If you google "concrete speaker stands" you'll see it is a fairly common practice. Also, most decent speaker stands can be filled with sand or similar to add plenty of mass for the same reasons.

No thanks on the Goodmans.....

OwainDIYer said:

you could probably bend the rods on those gates with your bare hands.

Click to expand...

Hi

It wasn't the rods in the middle of the gate I was referring to, but the rectangular strips that form the outer of the gate. They felt pretty strong to me....

OwainDIYer said:

The problem is that individual legs have no lateral bracing and will collapse as soon as there is a load which starts bending them.

Click to expand...

Good point, so maybe I can add (or ask to have added!) some lateral bracing all around apart from the front (so I can slide the bottom speaker in and out). So - near ground level - horizontal bars will join the front legs to the back legs, and the two back legs together.

OwainDIYer said:

If you made it as an open-fronted (5 sided) cube then you could do it in chipboard quite easily, because the sides of the cube brace each other.

Click to expand...

Not a bad idea and one I'll think about.... Could I use 18mm MDF? Would this kind of structure definitely be strong enough do you think?

Also, because the space is tight - I'll probably go for something something in between square and triangular

More: /_\ than: [_]

But I don't think that would matter would it?

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Thanks a million for all the help - I really appreciate it.

Max

Weight with metal tables is very problematic, you should look at several sites and have someone help you, so essential.

Thanks for your input decovida

I would be interested to hear more about why you think this? Do you not thikn it depends on the type of metal used?