Nice Rack

This is the fully assembled and ready-to-go light stand (actually, it's two light stands, stacked). I built four stands altogether.

These are the parts and tools you'll need to build your own stand. I used fir because the pine two-by stock you find at the big box stores like Lowes or Home Despot is pretty shabby. I used two drills, one for drilling, one for the screws (inset), a square, and two clamps. I cut my pieces using a compound miter saw, which gave me square ends, important for this butt-end construction. A complete parts list is at the bottom of the page.

I modified my stand from plans I found here. You can see that this guy is better than I at giving instructions. He must have been a teacher.

First step is to clamp the 30"verticals to the 21-inch horizontals. 

Next, drill and put two 3 1/8 inch screws in each butt end.

First completed side.

When you have two sides completed, you're ready for the horizontal cross pieces.

Attach the two 48-inch pieces using the 2 1/2-inch screws. Center and attach the 1"x2"x48" center brace. Finally, use a square to make sure the vertical ends are square to the horizontal cross pieces and the attach the diagonal back brace using 1 1/2-inch screws.

I angle cut the ends of the diagonal brace for a cleaner look.

Next step, the wheels. These are obviously only attached to the bottom rack. Dowel pins are attached to each upper rack. 

Flip the stand over. Drill 3/8-inch holes 1 1/2 inches deep in the center of each leg. I used a doweling jig to ensure the holes are centered and square, but one can just mark the center and drill freestyle.

Meh, fairly centered.

After the holes are drilled, hammer each wheel sleeve into its hole.

Then, pop each wheel into its corresponding sleeve.

The last step before attaching the lights is to attach the shelf board. I notched each corner of the shelf board to make a clean and snug fit. I then attached the shelf to the cross pieces using the 1 1/2-inch screws.

After the stands are stacked and roughly in place, it's time for final assembly. First attach the lights and install bulbs. Then lay out each heating mat.

These are the Hydrofarm compact rope ratchets. These clips make it a breeze to raise and lower the lights.

To keep the spendy Hydrofarm seedling heat mat dry, I covered each mat with a heavy mil plastic landscape sheeting. Apparently, I sure do love stapling. Note, the lights are plugged into a timer. The mats are connected to a thermostat.

Hydrofarm thermostat. All four mats are connected to one thermostat using a dedicated power strip.

The thermostat probe is inserted between soil blocks to measure the temperature.

Final setup in action.

Parts list.