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help me select metal type for big screen TV mount

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madmaxnj

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Hi guys,

So I'm finally going to bite the bullet on a nice big TV. Looking to get a 65". My current TV stand isn't going to be big enough to just set the new TV on top of it. The TV stand is a nice piece, solid wood, on wheels, fits all the gear, etc. So I was thinking of mounting 2 pieces of metal to the back, vertically, up to a standard wall mount TV bracket, like this.
http://www.bjs.com/omnimount-tilt-wall-mount-for-4--8--tvs.product.3000000000000797636
Sorry, I don't know how to embed someone else's image in a post :(

So if I take either angle or channel, maybe 5 footers, drill and mount to the back of my existing stand running horizontally, maybe 12 -16" apart, sticking up 3 feet or so. Then mount this omnimount bracket to the steel, and then I have the TV mounted to the stand. I would have the TV 6" up from the top of the TV stand, so my center channel speaker would sit just below the TV and hide the brackets and the wires.

The question is, what kind of steel should I get that will hold up a 100 lb TV and won't be sketchy? I tend to overbuild things, but I'm thinking that 5' T304 1/4" stainless channel (at $163 a piece at onlinemetals) is way overkill. But what about hot roll mild steel angle, maybe 1.5"x1.5"x0.25" (at $22 a piece)? Need something strong enough to hold the TV, but something i can still drill with my Dewalt and some WD40 (still don't have the drill press setup in the new house, need to build the new garage first :)).

Thanks for the advice,
Max
 
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ScottsGT

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2" steel angle would be overkill itself. And much cheaper than stainless. What ever you do though, bolt in a piece of 3/4" ply at the top to bolt this mount to. It requires the flat surface structure for rigidity.

Trust me, I do this **** for a living at a University. We would never use a mount this flimsy, but we've seen them used and as long as the wall portion is bolted firmly they work pretty good.
We use the Chief LTMU or XTMU mounts.
 
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Kaizen

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I vote for a wall mount as well. Up and out of the way and safe.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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lakeroadster

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ducksface said:
I think the statistic is that more kids are killed by tipping over TV setups than are killed in car crashes.
Mount it to the wall.
Maybe I missed the reason you're not wall mounting.
Click to expand...

You can always make more kids.... but can you make a TV? :spit:

Safety in this case all depends on how big and heavy the stand is that the TV is going on?

Max.. Can you provide any data on the stand you currently have.. some dimensions, what it weighs, maybe a photo?
 
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madmaxnj

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the current stand is roughly 40wx30hx20 deep. Pretty solid stand. I didn't try and lift it with the 46" TV on it, but I'd say its 150-200 lb. With all the gear I'd says its probably 200. The wheels are very low profile, mounted slightly inside the base and only protrude 1/8". So the stand isn't tipping over. It wouldn't roll on carpet in my old house, but does roll on the hardwood in the new house.

So in the new house, still getting settled as far as where everything goes. The TV stand is against a red accent wall that I have a lot of elbow grease in smoothing out that wall (old owners put **** everywhere into the walls) and getting it a perfect shade of red (have you ever painted red? You do not want to mess with that wall unless you are absolute sure). So that's why its not getting mounted in the wall, and I would prefer it on the stand so if the stand has to move a couple of feet this way or that way as the rest of the furniture locations stabilize, its no problem.

I've looked at new stands, and the only one we liked (I liked it more than her, she didn't really like anything we saw) was $1K and the center channel speaker would need to be mounted behind glass doors. So open the doors every time I turn on the surround sound and pay 1K for that? No thanks.

I have to admit, I didn't come up with this idea on my own. I've seen several TV stands with this type of setup. Typically they just have a single piece of channel coming up the center from the base with the mount on top. I just haven't seen any like that that we like.

Doing this setup I solve a current problem I have, where does the center channel speaker go. in the old house the TV was above the fireplace and the center channel speaker was on the mantel behind the TV, which was wall mounted about 5 inches off the mantel. with the new setup I will set the mount so its exactly the right height for the speaker to rest on the top of the TV stand, below the TV, and hide the mount and wires.

ScottsGT, i was considering mounting a piece of plywood across the top. I guess it depends which specific mount I get, the one I posted was an example of the type of mount I'd get. If i get a beefier mount and its all bolted together, the plywood would be kinda redundant, right?

thanks for the feedback. So about the metal type to use?
 
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WhiffySpark

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I have a Walmart stand that has a mount on the back and the tv floats over it. It’s pretty heavy it held an older 55 with no issue. I’ve gone to wallmount on everything.

The 2 piece bolt together wall mounts are complete **** on amazon. Get one with a solid plate
 
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RPH

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I used a metal basement jack column. Mounted the move anywhere tv mount to that. Mine is in the corner so wall mount was not going to happen. Pipe is painted black and just blends into the background. Few bucks and I know it’s secure.
 
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madmaxnj

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rockettgpw

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Another vote for unistrut and if tipping is a problem, fix in a restraint back to the wall as should be fitted to wardrobes and tallboys (which are a well recognised kid flatteners as well)
 
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NUTTSGT

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If you want to mount to the wall, wait a few days. The BF ads will be out and I have no doubt there will be cheap wall mounts for the TVs that always go on sale.
 
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4 FN 27

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We build a ton of TV Mounting Parts for a few different customers. Most gauges of steel used in their assemblies is 14 ga (.074) or 12 ga (.104) and in very rare cases 11 ga (.120).

I think the Uni-Strut option above is the best most economical option. 1.5 x 1.5 x .250 Angle...well yes that would be over kill...but if it helps you sleep at night go for it. It will work.
 
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Ign

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1/4” wt = ridiculous overkill. Sq tube 1”x14ga will be great. If you don’t like that (and I know you won’t), 1.25x14ga

Don’t shop for steel online, go to a local yard. It’ll be WAY cheaper
 
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madmaxnj

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So the TV on its own base is fitting okay on top of the TV stand right now. I thought the legs were going to hang over the edge, but they both go right up to the edge (Samsung wide V base). And with no kiddies around I'm not in a super rush, but this will be a winter project.

Sounds like I'll go with a pair of 12 gauge superstruts from the depot.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Superstrut-1-5-8-in-x-10-ft-Metal-Framing-Channel-ZA1200HS-10/100125003
I'll cut them to size, probably about 6', to go from the bottom of the TV stand to higher than the top of the mount but not higher than the TV in the raised position. File the cut edge and spray black. I will need to check exact hardware when I get to it, but there is a healthy base plate at the bottom of the TV stand I can drill into, and a reinforcement running along the top just under the top piece I can use to mount the superstruts to.

The VESA mount points on the back of the TV are just over 16" wide, and my center channel speaker that will be below the TV and hiding the struts and the wires is exactly 16" wide. So the superstruts will need to be a little less than 16" from outer edge to outer edge, thus I can't mount directly to the struts. Plus I like the angle down option so I can eliminate the glare from the ceiling light in the hallway. I'll put that amazon one on my wish list and get it for xmas.

Thanks for the tips guys. I typically try to stay away from depot for stuff like this. My closet rods in the new house are way overkill heavy DOM cold rolled tubing I bought from onlinemetals. Actually 2 of them were on Amazon at a deep discount, last 2 they listed. After setting up each closet the test was to hang from them and make sure they didn't budge :thumbup: I've never used the superstruts before, but I see some people wax real poetic about how great they are for everything, so this will be a good introduction for me.
 
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madmaxnj

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So I finally got around to doing this yesterday. Here is the finished product.
 

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lakeroadster

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The wood that the uprights fasten to.. is that real wood of fiber board?

Did you through bolt the uprights to the wood or use wood screws?
 
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nolimits76

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lakeroadster said:
The wood that the uprights fasten to.. is that real wood of fiber board?

Did you through bolt the uprights to the wood or use wood screws?
Click to expand...

I see where you're going with this and I was thinking the same thing -- to me, it appears if there will be failure, it will be in the attachment to the wood or pressed board. I'm not sure why the OP wouldn't install some wood blocking to really give it some beef to mount the TV bracket.

Personally I don't like the setup. I would have bought a new TV stand, or mounted to the wall.

FYI, I had a similar issue when I bought my 80" HDTV. A real first world problem here, but finding a proper sized TV stand for a TV that large is difficult. Even if you mount to the wall, you typically want the stand to extend out further from each end of the TV so it doesn't look goofy.

While my *** cheeks puckered up due to price, Restoration Hardware had a good solution with their 100" console.

https://www.restorationhardware.com/catalog/product/product.jsp?productId=prod360156

prod360156_E88468772620_FP


FYI, my TV only weighs 125#. My 55" I had prior to this was even lighter, so mounting to the wall is more of a mental thing than a real weight issue (assuming you hit studs, or use wood blocking to secure the mount).
 
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lakeroadster

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nolimits76 said:
I see where you're going with this ...
Click to expand...

My experience with these types of cabinets is that they are made from particle board and are structurally only up to the task they were designed for... and sometimes not even that.

I'm thinking a piece of 3/8" plywood across the entire back, screwed and glued all the way around it's perimeter to the cabinet, would have been a better approach. That would tie all the pieces of the cabinet together. Then through bolt the new uprights to the plywood, with large flat washers used inside.
 
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nolimits76

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lakeroadster said:
My experience with these types of cabinets is that they are made from particle board and are structurally only up to the task they were designed for... and sometimes not even that.

I'm thinking a piece of 3/8" plywood across the entire back, screwed and glued all the way around it's perimeter to the cabinet, would have been a better approach. That would tie all the pieces of the cabinet together. Then through bolt the new uprights to the plywood, with large flat washers used inside.
Click to expand...

Pretty much what I was thinking and meant by "wood blocking", except I would go 3/4" thick because I like overkill & always do 3/4" thick on everything, lol.
 
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ozyborn

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Mount the the tv to the wall. Rocketfish tilting mount or Sanus advanced tilting. Wait for a sale. I have mounted hundreds of tv in my work. Never liked or trust the cheap mounts that you can twist by hand to hold any tv. Secure to studs and hold nearly any tv
 
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madmaxnj

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Gotta love the internet.

I'm sure there are better ways to do this. There are better ways to do anything. This is how I did it. If you don't like it, I recommend you don't do this at home. I put up a couple of pics just in case anybody was interested and wanted to see how I did it. As I have said earlier in the thread I did not want to mount it to the wall, and I did not want to buy a new stand. For me, it came out exactly how I wanted it, to a T.

This was my first time working with unistrut type stuff and I was pretty impressed with it. Pretty stout stuff and reasonably priced.

Its not tipping over. TV weights 55#s. Stand without electronics is probably a buck fifty plus. I didn't put it on a scale when I moved, but its stout. Its about 20 years old and used to hold my 200+# tube TV, so its not blinking with the 75# I have on it now. The top mount are bolts, fender washers, locks, and nuts on the inside, going through a solid wood beam that crosses the entire back of the cabinet. Bottom mounts are lag bolts, and there must be a beefy boss under there since they are almost completely in wood. I had to extend the drill bit in the chuck when drilling the pilot holes. The TV mount is pretty stout as well, not flimsy, not bending in your hands. I'm sure I could bend it if I put one end in a vice and leaned on the other end, but why would i do that?

Sorry for the rant, I'm having a bad day. Thanks to those that recommended the unistrut stuff, I'm sure I'll use it again now that I tried it out.
 
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