Trev's stupid shelf building advice thread.

Right, I have this recess in our front room to the right of our chimney breast.

We've just got a sh*tty old bookcase in there at the moment as you can see. The wife has absolutely loads of books, so what I want to do is to build in shelves that take up the width of this recess and allow storage to full height up to the ceiling.



Now what I'd like to do is create something that matches nicely with our AV unit. It's a bloody heavy chunky beast, made presumably of pine or something and stained to give a nice rustic look.



So what I'm thinking is getting a load of lengths of pine (or other softwood - suggestions?) of say 1" thick (I haven't a clue what standard thickness cuts you normally get) and staining them to match my AV unit. Also to give a kind of chunky look I thought of putting some 1.5" or 2" edging along the front of each shelf.

There's a back boiler in the breast at the moment and a central heating pump that's accessed on the right-hand side behind a thin ply panel, so I don't want to make it too awkward to access that in future. (You can just see the ply sheet peeled away where, uh, I had to replace the pump a few months ago and was too pikey to properly nail it back.)

I'd like to make the shelves look kind of floating without uprights being too visible. What's the best way to do this? The outer of the chimney breast is just a kind of wooden frame with ply boxed around it so may not be substantial enough to baton to.

I thought about using spur brackets like these, so that the upright metal strips are out of sight at the back. Or are they a bit too pikey?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270613699622&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT



Simple stuff I know, but I'm crap with woodwork and wondering how others would do it. Also not sure what to ask for when phoning a timber merchant.

 

just remember to measure twice and cut once

 

super easy way is to use L section steel screwed to the walls at the sides and just slide the shelves in. maybe recess the bases slightly to the thickness of the steel. Paint the steel wall colour and it's all good.

1" thick is a little too thin to do proper floating shelves

 

I'm very disappointed... I opened this thread expecting manly garage shelving chat

 

haha same - I was thinking "it's the garage, who cares what it looks like?"

 

I have been to someones house and they used new scaffold boards, cut them up, stained them before putting them together and they look great.

 

Yeah. Yesterday I picked up these lengths of 45mm x 175mm pine timber.

I'm going to biscuit-joint two lengths together to make up each shelf. Already picked up a biscuit jointer on eBay for 27, which can't be bad.



Disc cut a couple of lengths and test fitted. Should look quite nice when it's all built in and stained to colour I think.



Still not sure about how to mount them neatly. I was thinking of routing some 25mm(ish) slots into the short edges (possibly using the biscuit cutter, if possible?) and sliding the slots onto battens which would then be completely hidden. That'd probably be far too fragile though because they're going to need to support a hell of a lot of heavy books. Might just use those angle stretcher brackets or steel angle section as Prof suggests.

 

route a 1" x 1" slot on the two short sides (stop just short of the front) and the back edge, mount 1" x 1" batten to the walls and sit the shelve on it, invisible mounting!, to make sure the shelves stay put add a couple of screws down through the shelves into the battens.

 

Trouble is your splitting the wood and putting weight on that split. It's a good idea but I think it would need a screw down through the shelf into the runner on the wall.

 

didn't i say that, screw down through the shelf into the batten on the wall?
or you could use the your biscuit joint to slot the wood and use a angle section 30mm by 10mm, screww that to the wall by the long side and slot the shelf on to the short part sticking out from the wall.

 

Whoops, Didnt see that on my iPhone

Angle is a good idea too

 

Is that pressure treated timber???

 

Think so?

 

Ok, see pm. Another 'top tip' Leave biscuits in hotpress for 12hrs before you use them, this will thin them to the proper moisture content. Putting 4.5mm biscuits into 4mm slots is not funny I can tell you if you have a line of ten to close

 

Cheers Brian. Um, that reminds me... need to get the biscuits!

Yeah, I think I might try the idea suggested of 20mm by 20mm angle steel down the sides, and use the biscuit jointer to create the slots. I'm thinking of ordering something like this; I know that seller is pretty happy to supply it pre-cut to the lengths you want if you ask nicely.

The structure around the breast is a bit of a PITA to mount any brackets to but should be strong enough. Will have to put a removable panel in so I can always get at the CH pump - should I ever have to replace it again. Why someone thought it was a good idea to wallpaper over it and completely hide it I really don't know! It was fun having to pull away boards to search for a seized CH pump.

 

did somebody mention biscuits??

sorry I can't be much more help

 

trev check how deep a slot the biscuiter can cut before ordering your angle iron

 

Woo, update.

Made the brackets. I even had an excuse to use the TIG welder a bit. The brackets on the left end of the shelves had to be made in an L-shape for strength because the wooden frame around the chimney breast doesn't have many uprights inside to fasten to.











To cut the slots I used a biscuit jointer similar to this one. I got it stupidly cheap off eBay - something like 30 quid including postage. Excellent tool.



Very chuffed with the result. I next need to stain them to match the AV unit.

 

Thats actually looking very neat
I'm sat here looking on how poor my shelving is

 

that looks brilliant and I love the chunky AV unit. I am very confused though that really is invisible mounting how is it done?