Ideas for shelves / insert??

[picky]

Here are the oak shelving units I built from scratch using mostly 1" Red Oak board.

The DVD drawers are on ball bearing slides:

Each of the bookshelves is adjustable vertically. I drilled 2 sets of holes from top-to-bottom in the two vertical end-pieces an inserted steel grommets that adds reinforcement to each hole as well as it dresses them up appearance-wise. A steel pin is then inserted into each grommet for a total of 4 steel pins supporting each shelf:

All of the wood has been stained using MinWax, water-based wood stain in "Rosewood" color.

[DrWho]

Picky is the man when it comes to using space efficiently [Y]

When building cabinets, I personally prefer a slight scent of mint.

[Groomlakearea51]

On Coytee's comment about weight and metal strips. I'm in the process of finishing a dedicated "stereo room/ man cave". My wife told me to go for whatever, as long as everything looks neat, clean, etc. I have spoken with a local metal fabricator who is a friend of mine and does contract work for our boats at my agency. In any event, the idea is 7' vertical steel strips with pieces that stick out approximately 12" spaced at 12" intervals. The steel horizontal pieces would be similar in appearance to the small stamped steel shelf supports, but... they would be made from 1/8" thick steel and welded to the vertical strips, sorta like an "E". According to his calculations, if the verticals were spaced every 32" (every other vertical stud), secured by good lag bolts every 12", a 6' long shelf could hold well over 350 pounds before you would even see a "sag". It's a little "industrial", or "overbuilt", but in substance it could provide the framework for nice 3/4" birch/ ash plywood with some edgebanding. The appearance, if done right, and the vertical braces painted, would give the appearance of "floating shelves" that could easily bear the weight of books, records, amps, etc. Just a thought.

[PrestonTom]

I struggled over a similar dilemma. I did not like the look of the store bought ones and I have limited tools. So I went to the flea market and found a small and slightly damaged dinning room table made of chestnut. I gingerly stripped it down to preserve the patina. Cut the beast in two, divided up the legs, and beefed up some of the bracing.

[mas]

There many ways to safely do this.

If you have a cabinet or rack enclosure utilizing a wood face frame, you could simply install a series of hidden 1"x1" spaced strips with screws on the left and right sides of the cabinet's interior. A face frame will not only hide exposed plywood edges, but will hide the rails. Of course, in a frame rack, they could be left exposed as part of the design (especially if you made them of solid wood).

A simple variation would be to simple screw cut strips of angle iron to the interior cabinet sides for shelf support. This would allow for the adjustment of shelves in a closed faced framed cabinet where rear access is not feasible.

Alternately, sections of storage 'slotwall' can be used for the side panels.

Then you can use 3/8" tp 3/4" plywood (oak faced if you like, with either veneer edge banding or similarly face framed with a thin strip of solid wood capable of holding any mass you might want to suspend.

The shelves can be spaced accordingly.

Sometimes low tech works better than fancy high tech designs.

[Tom Adams]

Coytee

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Michael is right about those HD/Lowes metal strip thingies with the multiple slots. For your application (standard width/depth shelf to support A/V gear) those strip thingies will be more than adequate. And with your indulgence, Ill explain why they can support such great loads.

First, Michael is right about designing the shelf itself so that it resists bending. His suggestion of using a face board is one method and is probably the one I would chose since it gives the shelf a finished look while hiding the plywood plies and making the shelf stiffer. The stiffness is the result of two materials fighting each other. In Engineering speak, when the shelf is in tension, the face strip is in compression (and vice versa), therefore the two forces sum to zero (or near abouts) and no bending of the shelf occurs.

As for the metal strip thingiesthe clips that fit into the strips slots are transferring the shelf load via a shear load to the metal strip. And as long as there are sufficient fasteners (nails) holding the strips to the wood, those metal strips and clips can take a good bit of shear load. Id go out on a limb and say that 250lbs+ would not be an issue. Additionally, because the clips are relatively stubby (dont stick out so far) theres virtually no bending moment resulting in the entire load being a shear load. Again not a problem.

Personally, for what you are wanting to achieve, the metal strip thingie installed as Michael suggested is your easiest, cheapest, fastest solution IMHO. Oh and there are some nice moldings that can be used for face strips that will give the shelves a dressed-up look.

Tom