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August 5, 2008
Securing partially floating shelves to wall
Hello, I am in the process of building floating shelves in my loft and wondering if screws or bolts would be better to secure to the studs. I say they are partially floating as the shelves are 9 feet long but attached to the wall at both ends. They will have 3 points of contact to the wall but a long distance in the middle will be floating. I've constructed the shelves in a torsion box fashion with 2x3's with 1/2 plywood skin to reduce the weight and increase riggidity (i think that's a word.) The shelves are 14''in depth and are going to hold books so I need the best and strongest fastner available.
Any suggestions would be appreciated. Most of the walls are sheetrock but I haven't explored behind this wall yet. The building was an old pencil factory built in 1840 but was converted to rentals in the 80's so anything could be behind the sheetrock, maybe concrete. Any thoughts, tips, suggestions?
thanks,
Comments
It's rigidity :-)
Seems you need to peek behind that wall. You don't even know if the studs are wood or steel.
Posted by: denton at August 5, 2008 3:33 PM
I'm pretty sure that they are wooden studs from my exploring behind the other walls. I'm going to drill tonight to confirm and repost. Thanks. If they are wooden would screws or bolts be the better fastner? They would probably need to be pretty long screws to get proper depth. 4" to 5" long I'm thinking in order to go through the 2x3, sheetrock, and finally the stud.
Posted by: Adam Dahill at August 5, 2008 4:09 PM
Will you be using a cleat? Use a good construction adhesive (like PL polyurethane) in conjunction with your fasteners That is what will really hold it. If the wall is concrete- use tapcons and your golden.
Posted by: southslope at August 5, 2008 4:12 PM
Yes, I will be using a 2x3 running the entire length of the wall as a cleat. I plan on fastening the plywood skin to the cleat on both the top and bottom. I plan on using an adhesive in conjunction with the fastners to give it added support. I think its going to look great when done and I plan on posting the results.
Posted by: Adam Dahill at August 5, 2008 6:30 PM
Are you going to screw the cleat onto the wall and then glue the shelf onto the top and bottom of the cleat? Won't that make it nearly impossible to get off without destroying either the shelf or the wall if you ever need to move it, or am I missing something?
Posted by: Bond at August 5, 2008 10:52 PM
With the weight of a nine foot shelf and possibly 300 pounds of books, I'd probably use 5 x 3/8" lag bolts instead of screws. Construction adhesive is overkill. Besides, it would stick to the paper facing of your drywall, and that doesn't have much holding power.
Posted by: Steve at August 6, 2008 1:54 AM
You would think that the adhesive would pull the paper facing off the drywall, wouldn't you? But recently we were asked to remove a 12" deep floating shelf that we installed five years ago with PL polyurethane adhesive. When the 3" wood screws were removed-the shelf didn't budge, so one of the guys decides to stand on it- still nothing. When it was removed of it pulled the 5/8" sheetrock off the wall, not just the paper face the whole section of rock behind the shelf.
The adhesive is necessary to stop the "flexing" (from loading and un-loading the shelf) that inevitably loosens mechanical fasteners and conform the the voids of the wall and 2x3's which are not perfectly flat, thus creating more surface contact.
Posted by: southslope at August 6, 2008 4:44 PM
Thanks for all the help guys and gals.
I'm probably going to go with the combination of adhesive and the 5 3/8 lag bolts. I was leaning towards the bolts anyway and just wanted some feedback. I'll make sure to post the end results when I'm done.
Love, Peace, Hipster Greece....
Posted by: Adam Dahill at August 6, 2008 5:03 PM
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