Project 2 from welderdude: custom tv wall mount.

[welderdude]

My parents bought a 32 inch LCD tv for their bedroom. They wanted to be able to watch tv while walking on the treadmill or watch it in bed. I fabbed up a wall mound that would mount to an outside corner and swing out in both directions.

I used a piece of 2 inch by 1/8'' thick angle iron for the bracket that was going to be screw to the wall. The piece of tubing is a piece of scrap I had laying. Its about 18 inches long. the tubes that having the bolts going through them is 1 inch OD tubing with a 3/4 inch ID. I made 4 custom bushings out of steel that had a 3/8 ID and would fit into the tube snuggly. Its all MIG welded together. The bracket is held to the wall with 4 3'' long drywall screws. I was going to use lags, but my dad and I decided that the drywall screws were strong enough and he didn't want bigger holes in his wall.

The bracket that is attached to the tv is 2 parts. There are 2 pieces of 3/16 by 1'' flat stock with the 4 mounting holes drilled and 4 - 1/4x28 holes that the second piece mounts to. the rest of it also uses the same size flat stock.

pic 1 shows the tv in the position that is used for walking on the treadmill.

pic 2 shows it close to where my mom puts it when she watched tv in bed.

the rest are pretty self explanatory i think.

[charger891]

neat tv bracket idea!

[67cudafb]

Nice job I hope thats a lcd and not a plasma tv it seems the leverage from the arm would put alot of stress on those drywall screws. How do you like the grizzly lathe?

[redbeard]

Nice job I hope thats a lcd and not a plasma tv it seems the leverage from the arm would put alot of stress on those drywall screws. How do you like the grizzly lathe?

My parents bought a 32 inch LCD tv

Even so, I would prefer to see beefier fasteners too.

[67cudafb]

Duh guess I don't read very well huh lol

[dyethor]

Nice job! That's cool the tv can follow you around the room.
That's kinda scary with the drywall screws. Here in California one earthquake would bring that thing down. Since there should be some good wood in the corner I would use some lag bolts.

[welderdude]

I would prefer lags too, but those drywall screws are pretty damn strong though. My little sister could hang off the end of it before I mounted the tv.

As for the lathe, its like a little work horse. I just need some more tooling for it. The only possible problem is that one of the spindle bearings makes a bit of noise every now and then. I figured that if one goes bad, Ill get a set of replacement bearings and change them my self and call it good.

[CGCINC]

I would prefer lags too, but those drywall screws are pretty damn strong though. My little sister could hang off the end of it before I mounted the tv.

.

LOL... The Ol' scientific test... Looks good!

I know it's not a big tv but the only thing holding the tv's weight would be the top two screws. I'm a believer in screwing everything (no pun intended ) But I would probably add some lags at the top for long term safety.... just my thoughts

[welderdude]

I do believe overkill is an underrated achievement. I'm going to put a few more screws in because its bugging me now. I really have a hard time believing it will break in the current setup, but you never know. Drywall screws have a high tensile strength, but are not very tough compared to mild steel lags.

[jakeru]

Drywall screws are hardened steel, so indeed have a lot of tensile strength per unit of cross sectional area (i.e., psi tensile strength.) However, because they are designed to pierce through undrilled drywall without damaging the drywall too badly, and through undrilled wood without splintering the wood, they have a pretty skinny cross sectional area.

A lag screw, like a 1/4" or 5/16" lag screw, wouldn't be hardened like a drywall screw (so it might have let's say 50% the psi tensile strength, let's say), but it might have 10x the cross sectional area, so would be able to take 500% the load of a drywall screw before failing. Also, if its load were exceeded it would bend instead of snap - (good for the TV I'd say.)

FYI, I've got a somewhat similar wall-mount bracket for a TV in my living room, with an articulating arm that can extend the TV as far as 28" away from the surface of the wall. It mounts on a flat surface, not a corner like yours. The portion of the steel bracket contacting the wall (drywall with wood stud behind) is 12" tall, and is mounted with 3 vertically oriented lag screws (with a center to center spacing of 5.5".) I'm guessing they are 1/4" or 5/16" lag screws. There are actually provisions for two columns of screws (6 total) but I am only using one of the columns of screw holes (Going into a single stud.)

The newer LCD TVs with LED-backlighting are really thin and lightweight compared to the LCDs with flourescent backlighting, and would let you get away with a much less substantial mounting bracket I would think. I do think it is cool to make your own mounting bracket though. I like the corner mounting idea you used.