I’m trying to decide what material to use for some shelving, going to put full width (24″ x 72″)shelves in a closet in office to store back issues of woodworking magazines. Using 18″ adjustable supports, spaced every 16″ apart. Was looking at 3/4″ melamine, but didn’t know if it would develop a noticeable sag? Anybody have any suggestions on material?
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Replies
Outside of stone, glass, & metal anything will sag over time, if it's just flat stock.
I would put a stiffiner strip in the entire length 1x2 glued & screwed would do wonders of delaying the sag.
"Why do you hurt me when I do bad things to you?" My youngest son to his older brother
Surely somewhere in those back issues is an article on torsion boxes. Then you can forget those 16" OC eyesores. Route the ends and screw some strips to the side walls: floating shelves.
Be a woodworker, woodman. <G> Or go with 8/4 hickory.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
You beat me to it: Friend of mine built a variation of torsion boxes sandwiching a lattice between the top and bottom faces of 1/4" ply and glued it up well.
His shelves span about 7' and are loaded with engineering reference books.
BTW, as most here probably know, but some maybe not, books are one of the heaviest loads you can put on a structure, short of stacked up locomotive drive wheels and surplus 16" Navy gun barrels.
You really should put something on the front of the 3/4". I like to put a notch in the front piece so it lines up nice and is stronger.
Adjustable closet shelves.......
I would have a tendency to use 3/4" birch plywood with a 1x2 poplar front edge cover / stiffener - glued and nailed. Can be painted or coated with poly - I like the poly on birch.
Less expensive alternative would be to use 3/4" plywood sturd-i-floor -- still use poplar front edge. Paint finish as faces will need filling / sanding. Drawback is that the sturdi-i-floor will come as T&G which you will want to cut off = more work. Even with ripping off the t&g you will still be able to get very close to a 24" wide shelf since the poplar will add 3/4" to the effective width of the shelves.
You might consider the 20" long support brackets rather than the 18" - every little bit helps.
Supports on 16" centers - I don't think sagging will be a big problem with either material.
Jim
3/4 mel will be fine for you with supports spaced at 16 inches. I presume your supports will be doing the entire 24" depth.
You can dowel or biscuit a nice wood edging to it with 1x2 material, lip down, and things will be just ducky.
Now, if you want to go full span 72 inches, and load this 24-deep thing with books and mags, that is a whole nuther story.