Floating shelves

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Context

I want to create floating shelves in Ossolin, first in the cellar to try it out, and then probably elsewhere in the house:

  • Walls: Concrete in the cellar, and gasbeton or red brick elsewhere in the house
  • The shelves in the cellar will be used for DIY stuff. They should be strong enough that I could stand on them
  • I will use threaded metal rodds for connecting the shelves to the walls. In the summer of 2021, I got some 8mm or 10mm rod, but it seemed insufficient rigid. Maybe M12 will be better
  • Critical point: The drill holes have to be at exact locations and very straight. Otherwise, the rods (that go both in the walls and in the shelves), won't fit. I will probably make a jig for this, and this on its turn is critical. I expect to make this jig out of pallet wood
  • To fix the rods in the wall, I will probably use a chemical anchor
  • The rods will go almost completely through the shelves (they will almost come out at the other side).

Challenges

What I think are the major challenges:

  1. How to drill straight holes in shelves?
  2. How to drill straight holes in the wall?
  3. How to secure the rod in the wall?
  4. How to saw off the rod?

Jig to saw through the shelve

  • I should be using a long drill, so that it goes through the jig as well as through the beginning of the shelve. When the hole is deep enough, I can continue drilling without the jig
  • The challenge is, to drill exactly straight through the shelve, meaning parallel to the surface (and bottom) of the shelve
  • How Chappel's self-made jig works: Create a 'shaft' to guide the drill into the wood

How deep in the wall?

How deeply should I drill in the wall?

  • Just see how long the drill is - That might be the limiting factor
  • This is an inner wall of about 10cm thick. It shouldn't come out at the outer side, so 10cm is an obvious limit → 8cm.

How to make sure that the holes are at the same height?

Maybe that's quite simple:

  • Drill one hole
  • Put the rod in it
  • Lay the plank on top of it
  • Figure out where the second rod should be, to make it level

Alexandre Chappel

This video from Alexandre Chappel:

  • The shelves are 20mm thick asswood boards
  • The walls are also from wood - That's different from my situation, as I want to attach the shelves against concrete walls in the cellar, or gasbeton blocks or red bricks, in the house. He tests if he can indeed just screw the rods in the walls around 2:08: He drills a 10mm-wide hole in a testpiece of wood, and screws the rod in it (using a nifty trick with two nuts). This probably doesn't work for me in stone walls (my idea: Use a chemical anchor)
  • Use M12 threaded metal rods for connecting the shelves to the wall. M12 Means that the diameter is 12mm. Since the shelves are only 20mm thick, the margin for error is limited
  • The holes in the shelves, will also be 12mm

Jig

Locations of holes in the wall

  • Nothing magical: He just figured our where the studs in the wall are, and uses a metal centimeter to mark the spots
  • I think he used a laser waterpas somewhere along hte way
  • Subsequently, he drills the holes. He uses very long drills.

Rods in the wall

  • Next, he screws the rods in the wall
  • So, first holes in the wall + threads in the wall, before he touches the shelves

Hole markings on the shelve

  • Place the shelve on top of the rods against the wall
  • Use a carpenter square to make markings on the shelve that correspond with the rods

Sources

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