Seed starting stand completed

[Ken Werner]

My wife, Shelley, loves gardening about as much as I do woodworking. She wanted a plant starting table, and as we looked around for them, nice ones were about as costly as say a heavy cast iron motorized tool.

Thanks to Jim Becker for a photo, and a small article at Fine Gardening, I came up with this design. It is held together with Lee Valley knock down hardware. The shelves are fixed, the lamp units, which hold 4 T-8 bulbs each are adjustable. As the brackets for the lamps have half lap joints, the lamps will remain horizontal. Very nice 3" polyurethane casters from Grizzly top [or bottom] it off.

The wood is maple, finished with some minwax poly.

[John Daugherty]

Ken, great looking plant stand. I need to build one of those for myself!

[Don Bullock]

Ken, that's a great project. It looks like that will work out well for your wife. Being able to adjust the lights is a good feature. The way you designed in that feature is excellent.

[Gary Keedwell]

Ken,

Accolades are in order!!! Great work.

Gary K.

[Al Killian]

Nice stand. I do need to make a smaller version for are gardin needs. What type of bulbs are you useing? In the past I have used bulbs meant for plants, I bought them at second favorite place ( fish store).

[Lou Morrissette]

Looks like another project coming up. Nice job, Ken. Could I start seeds in the basement with that rig?

Lou

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

I like your rack system really well.
Great method for the light adjustment.

[Stan Welborn]

Nice work. Glad my wife isn't seeing it.

http://www.tradeshop.com/temp15/shhhhh.gif

[Peter Stahl]

Great looking stand Ken. Are the bulbs you used anything special or just the standard fluorecsent?

[Corey Hallagan]

Excellent, that is great. Nice job, I bet the wife is real happy!

Corey

[Ken Werner]

Answers:
Yes the plan is to start seeds in the basement.
We asked a fellow we know who is in charge of some greenhouses at a local college and he advised us to get 2 cool white and 2 warm bulbs for each 4 bulb unit. That's supposed to be an economical alternative to "gro-lites".
Thanks to all for your kind words.
Ken

[Luke McFadden]

Really great looking. My wife and I just planted some seeds to give gardening a shot! This looks a lot better than the plates and bowls I used. It looks great, I wouldn't mind seeing some plans or something similar to help noobies like me give this a shot, maybe on a smaller scale.

[Ken Werner]

Luke,
I just drew some sketches for dimensions and some details. The rest was designed on the fly. I don't have plans I can share with you. I'd be happy to answer any questions, or go over the building process in detail with you though.
Ken

[Mike Cutler]

Very nice, and mostly, a well made, cleverly designed, functional project that will see daily use.

Well done Ken.

I will suggest to you, that if you could find a way to economize the process, and get the cost down. This is something that would sell in a Smith Hawkens catalog.

Of course making just one for very special person is payment enough sometimes.;)

Once again. Well done.

[James Rowe]

Great stand, I have wanted to make one for some time. Perfect design for what I was looking for also. I grow my seedlings in the basement also and would like to take the stand apart after use. Hope you don't mind if I borrow some of your design ideas.

Regards,

James

[Ken Werner]

Thanks James, borrow away. If I can be of any help, please let me know.
Ken

[Nancy Laird]

I don't want my sister to see this. She'll be wanting one just like it--and we have too many other things on our plates.

Nancy

[John Hemenway]

Nice job on the stand. I really like your light height ajustment system!
Do you forsee any problems with water getting into the lights? I can't tell from the pictures if there is a waterproof covering over them.

[Jim Becker]

Woah, nice job!!! Outstanding, even!

BTW, that picture I sent you was one my my very first "real" woodworking projects, if not the first. I didn't have a jointer or planer at that point, so it was 'borg dimensional poplar. I think I only had a router, cheap table saw and a plug-in hand drill at that point. Oh, and a brad nailer...