Lab storage shelf collapse: postmortem

[soldar]

Better still.

[coppercone2]

I screwed 2by4 to the studs with a huge amount of 3 inch wood screws in addition to using 4x4 legs. I also used plywood and not mdf shit.

It has a full frame and 2x4 supports every 18 inches to make ribs

Your setup still seems anemic

[coppercone2]

I screwed 2by4 to the studs with a huge amount of 3 inch wood screws in addition to using 4x4 legs. I also used plywood and not mdf shit.

It has a full frame and 2x4 supports every 18 inches to make ribs

Your setup still seems anemic

For the shelves i also screw a 2x4  into two corners of the wall and lay lywood on top and screw it down. Then i have flat wooden boards that go from the shelf to the also screwed in table.

You would need to load it hard enough to bucle the boards and rip the screw out of the walls on every stud

The full back brace adds alot of strenight because there is nothing to twist with a point load

Put a 2x4 lattice under the shelves to stiffen them but i dont require that weight handling.

[Ian.M]

Better still.

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It rapidly reaches the point where for most of us, the complexity and accuracy of the joints required to make good wooden brackets costs more than buying high load metal brackets, if you figure in the cost of your time to make them.  Some economy of scale can be achieved if you clamp all similar parts side by side and set up a router jig to let you cut the same joint in each part in bulk as a single operation (or at most two operations).  Pre-drill all holes, then dowel and glue the joints in a jig to complete the brackets.

The other issue with wooden brackets is the length of screws they require.  Even if you countersink the screw holes in the brackets considerably you'll probably need at least 4" screws to get 2" of engagement with the stud vs 2 1/2" screws for most metal brackets.

[SilverSolder]

It rapidly reaches the point where for most of us, the complexity and accuracy of the joints required to make good wooden brackets costs more than buying high load metal brackets, if you figure in the cost of your time to make them.

Buying pre-made steel brackets is sound advice. 

It is a pretty quick job to make wooden ones if you have a table saw or a circular saw (and a sunny afternoon, bottle of beer, etc.) - and if you have those, you probably have some 2x4 material laying about as well - but it isn't worth buying a set of new tools or learning to use them just for this.

You don't actually need to route anything here, you can just make multiple passes with the saw set to the right depth to make the notches.

[IanJ]

Hi,

I wouldn't use these for heavy loads.......what happens is that the thin metal diagonal support bows (bends) over time and eventually the shelf collapses (talking from experience!).

Ian.

I would rebuild with something like these.



These 8" by 10" brackets will support 320 lbs per pair.  I used the bigger brothers to build my 'L' shaped desk and they support 600 lbs per pair.  They are available at Home Depot.

[GreyWoolfe]

Use strong brackets fastened securely into studs.

Space them closely.

If you are using mdf or if the distance between supports is too great then you should reinforce the underside of the shelf with one or several strips parallel to the wall.

I am always surprised by how badly people judge and how undersized they build things. I always overbuild and never have problems.

I agree.  If I was doing that for myself and knowing that the shelves were going to hold quite a bit of weight, I personally would do appropriately sized brackets like I showed in an earlier post on every stud and still use 3/4" plywood for the shelves.  Bolt the shelves and brackets together and should be Bob's your uncle.

For the adjustable shelves on my 8 foot workbench, I attached 2X4 studs every 2 feet and still used 3/4" plywood and there isn't a lot of weight on the shelves.  I originally did 1/2" MDF but the stuff bowed-that was a shame on me trying to save a bit of money.  I knew better but did it anyway.

Buying pre-made steel brackets is sound advice. 

It is a pretty quick job to make wooden ones if you have a table saw or a circular saw (and a sunny afternoon, bottle of beer, etc.) - and if you have those, you probably have some 2x4 material laying about as well - but it isn't worth buying a set of new tools or learning to use them just for this.

You don't actually need to route anything here, you can just make multiple passes with the saw set to the right depth to make the notches.

I have a table saw, miter saw, circular saw and I always have some 2x4s laying around.  I would rather buy the metal brackets I need than make them.

Hi,

I wouldn't use these for heavy loads.......what happens is that the thin metal diagonal support bows (bends) over time and eventually the shelf collapses (talking from experience!).

Ian.

I would rebuild with something like these.



These 8" by 10" brackets will support 320 lbs per pair.  I used the bigger brothers to build my 'L' shaped desk and they support 600 lbs per pair.  They are available at Home Depot.

Ian, these are actually the style of brackets I use, no tubes.  These 12" by 8" will support 600 pounds per pair.  I use the 18" brackets for my desktop space not the 12" that these are.  Since the studwork should be 16" on center here in the US, that would be 3 brackets per 4" shelf.  That should support some decent weight.  I like the brackets you posted but I have never seen anything like that here in the US.

[IanJ]

I use these wall brackets, which are surprisingly strong as they have a mitred, plated & welded joints.
Screwed into the studwork behind my plasterboard (dry wall), and with extra holes drilled in them for extra support against the wall.
The shelves are 2 layers of 15mm contiboard (coated chipboard) glued and screwed together.
No sagging after 1 year....pic attached.

[soldar]

It rapidly reaches the point where for most of us, the complexity and accuracy of the joints required to make good wooden brackets costs more than buying high load metal brackets, if you figure in the cost of your time to make them. 

True. It also depends on the value of your time. Mine at market value is almost worthless.

The second option I showed takes away having to cut notches and is very simple to do.

Another issue is aesthetics although my solution is to not care about that.

[ebastler]

A nice feature of the various metal brackets is that they are easy to install: Mount the individual brackets to the wall, put your shelf boards on top (the brackets already providing solid support), comfortably screw the shelf to the brackets from below.

The various wood support designs will typically involve balancing a half-supported shelf while you install the angled supports, and/or adding screws from above (while balancing a half-supported self. ;-)

[ajb]

The problem is those 45 degree wooden supports. I would rather use something like a metal angle bracket screwed into every stud along the way, deep into the stud with several screws. See attached image.

Those are crap for heavily loaded, highly cantilevered shelves.  They can be okay if they're made of heavy enough sheet metal, but they are prone to buckling because the amount of material in the compressively loaded area of the bracket is minimal, and open sections like that of the bracket have shit for torsional strength.  Even if they don't fail, the tend to not be very stiff.

The brackets posted by GeyWoolfe and IanJ are far better for heavy shelves. 

It is those large wooden 2x4 cut with 45 degree edges and held into the wall with single screws. They put too much strain on a single screw and rip it out of the wall. Having an L-bracket with a few screws along the stud will greatly reduce the ability to shear off the screws.

The problem is almost certainly the fastening at the rear of the shelf.  The toe of the 2x4 brace is in compression against the wall, and as long as the screw is into a stud, isn't sunk all the way through the 2x4, and isn't made of cheese it won't fail in shear either.  Contrast a screw 0.375" at best from the edge of a piece of MDF in shear [it]towards the edge of the MDF[/i] and you have a recipe for failure.

[SilverSolder]

I have a table saw, miter saw, circular saw and I always have some 2x4s laying around.  I would rather buy the metal brackets I need than make them.

If I had wanted metal brackets, I would have welded them up too!    -  It's all in what you like to do, there are many "right answers" to get a job done - just avoid the directly wrong answers, and avoid sitting on your hands, and you'll be OK!

[SilverSolder]

I use these wall brackets, which are surprisingly strong as they have a mitred, plated & welded joints.
...
No sagging after 1 year....pic attached.

That looks a very elegant bracket.  -  I like the layout of the whole work area, very clean!

[SilverSolder]

Better still.

The notched design is very strong and not hard to make.  If made with some nice straight wood, they could easily be nice enough to use inside the house.

[Neomys Sapiens]

Yeah when i build shelves i just get metal brackets for the job and put a good strong piece of wood on top.



I use this design a lot. Comes very usefully when you want multiple shelves on one wall since the height can be adjusted on the fly to the requirements. And they come in pretty beefy versions that can carry a lot of load. I mount the rails onto solid brick walls with plenty large screws into inserts and its rock solid.

That would have been my recommendation too. Most of my Storage is based on this, with a mixture of 1-slot and 2-slot (pictured) system. Including my clothing cabinet, which just has a tarpaulin around.
Some of those racks are stacked with paper and metal floor-to-ceiling.

[Red Squirrel]

Ouch that sucks!  Those shelves did not look all that strong though, I would not have felt right putting lot of weight on those TBH.

I like to overbuild stuff though... this is the shelves in my shed:





Probably be a bit stronger if I used plywood instead of cedar planks though, but still strong enough I think.  I used cedar for it's bug repelant properties, I figure I might get less spider webs in there.  Not sure how well that will work out but I'll see.


For stuff that will load a lot of weight I usually make sure to build in such a way that the fasteners are never bearing the load directly.  This is my battery rack for my server room:



Technically the nails do bear some of the load for each shelf cross member but each shelf is held by the lumber only.   

I might actually move all of this some day though to a battery box that sits on the ground so that maintenance of the batteries is easier.

[rdl]

When I first set up my bench, when it was in the closet, I used this exact same type of brackets as GreyWoolfe (well, except white).



Very strong, probably far more than I needed. Biggest problem is that once installed, no adjustment is possible, practically speaking.

I later switched to this type (image is from when I moved out of the closet). They have the double row of slots on the standards and folded metal brackets.



Not as sturdy as the previous, but has the advantage of being very adjustable. Bad thing about both is they're not really suitable for extra deep shelves, but if you attach the shelves firmly with screws, 18"-24" might be okay. Mine are just stuck in place with hot glue, with only 11" depth that works fine and leaves no holes, so when they sag I can flip them over. I like these so much I've been tempted to cover the entire wall with them.

[BravoV]

Yeah when i build shelves i just get metal brackets for the job and put a good strong piece of wood on top.



I use this design a lot. Comes very usefully when you want multiple shelves on one wall since the height can be adjusted on the fly to the requirements. And they come in pretty beefy versions that can carry a lot of load. I mount the rails onto solid brick walls with plenty large screws into inserts and its rock solid.

Yep, I use these too, the top shelves with big boxes probably under stress with total weight more than 50Kg. 

Posted the details -> HERE

Ceiling height is 3 meters.

[SteveyG]

Gallows brackets can be built to be incredibly strong. There's nothing inherently wrong with the original design other than it was poorly implemented and the fasteners were inadequate.

The OP can rescue what's already there by sandwiching the shelf at the back with another batten sitting on top of the shelf and adding further supports at more regular intervals.

MRMDF would be a better choice than the plain MDF used, but unless it's getting really damp in there there's no need to rip it all out.

[KL27x]

I'd probably glue in some strips of wood from the bottom to secure the shelves to the back strip/batten. Shoot a few nails to hold it while the glue dries. And make sure the batten is screwed to the studs. This way I wouldn't have to take it all down.

For sag prevention, maybe add a strip to the front lip. Or screw in some sort of U channel steel a few inches back from the front edge.

Add more supports if needed. But it doesn't look like you can properly fit 100 lbs of stuff per foot up there, unless you are hoarding something denser than electronic equipment.

It doesn't surprise me that this is held together mostly by just nails. This is the modern way of building things. Pulling a trigger is a lot easier than gluing things. I recently replaced some broken plywood in the frame of a sofa. Most of the frame was held together with a buttload of 2 inch long staples. They seemed to be sufficient, anyway. The wood failure was completely unrelated. Around the high stress area there were staples on top of staples. I had no idea I would be using a sawzall and a grinder to fix a wood frame couch. Then there's the wicker table I repaired. Square tube steel frame, wrapped in synthetic wicker. The wicker was secured to the steel frame by... yep. Staples. Just shot right into maybe 30-40 thousandths thick steel.

[0culus]

Wow, that is sad. Hope you can repair everything. My plan for my new lab is to get a beefy industrial rack system to hold my heavy test equipment that's not in use. I plan to possibly rackmount the stuff that I am using to free bench space.

On another note, I do like your lab bench. Where'd you get it?

[dfnr2]

That was not built by a real carpenter.
Those shelves wouldn't hold heavy clothing boxes let alone heavy Tech equipment.

I was skeptical at the time he built them, but he assured me it would hold the weight.  I have recently been learning a bit about working with wood, and had not long ago realized how vulnerable these shelves were.  I had been planning to either replace them, or add some more brackets and a 2x4 along the front to support the front from the joists.  But I never seemed to have the free time, and it didn't seem to be an emergency. . .

Save that great equipment.
I want to know how you get the heavy equipment up there? Without hurting yourself?

I stand on the bench (or a stepladder) and hoist it overhead.  I try not to put any individual piece over 30 lbs up there.

[dfnr2]

On another note, I do like your lab bench. Where'd you get it?

It's a Benchpro, kennedy series.  It's best to see if you can snag a used / surplus one, as they are expensive to buy new.  This one is 10 feet wide, 36 inches deep.  Because of the weight of the equipment on the bench's shelf, I had to brace the shelf with a 2x4 on either end, and one in the center (as you can see in the photo).  This bench is used for working on large assemblies, electromechanical work, and RF work (and for playing with the occasional vintage computer). There are two smaller (5 ft by 30 inch) benches on the other side for test/debug, and for soldering / rework.

[0culus]

On another note, I do like your lab bench. Where'd you get it?

It's a Benchpro, kennedy series.  It's best to see if you can snag a used / surplus one, as they are expensive to by new.  This one is 10 feet wide, 36 inches deep.  Because of the weight of the equipment on the bench's shelf, I had to brace the shelf with a 2x4 on either end, and one in the center (as you can see in the photo).  This bench is used for working on large assemblies, electromechanical work, and RF work (and for playing with the occasional vintage computer). There are two smaller (5 ft by 30 inch) benches on the other side for test/debug, and for soldering / rework.

Thanks! It might be worth it for me to save up for a custom order because I want certain features and I really like the look of their heavy duty line. I hate benches that move around on me.

[KL27x]

I was skeptical at the time he built them, but he assured me it would hold the weight.  I have recently been learning a bit about working with wood, and had not long ago realized how vulnerable these shelves were.  I had been planning to either replace them, or add some more brackets and a 2x4 along the front to support the front from the joists.  But I never seemed to have the free time, and it didn't seem to be an emergency. . .

From what everything I can see and what most other people have suggested, these 2 things are secondary. The main weakness of this shelf is that the back of the MDF if only secured into the back "batten" with nails. If you think of a bracket as a triangle, the top rear of that triangle where it goes into the wall is where the thing has to be secured the best. In this case your triangular bracket is made up of the shelf on top, the 45 degree support beam in front, and the stud in the wall at the back. That intersection between the back of the shelf and the rear batten that attaches to the studs, held only with nails, this is the weak point in this setup.

Personally, I fix this part first, with something like 1.5" x 1.5" maybe two strips of 3/4" thick board glued together (maybe cheaper at the local store than trying to find 2x2", if you have a suitable way to rip) and glued in the corner between the back batten and the bottom of the shelf. If there's a gap developing anywhere, already (e.g., you can see all kinds of daylight in this seam in your first pic, on the back of the shelf to the left of the one that fell out; this is probably why the brackets failed, because the shelf was pulling away from the wall and bending/pulling the bottom bracket screw out of the stud with tremendous force), I think I might remove everything and get up there with a hammer and some more nails to snug it tight, first. But this depends on what my level and square says*. Again, make sure there's at least one screw through this back strip in a stud, every 16", before you glue this up. I would just leave a gap in this reinforcement where these screws are, in case someone wants to take this whole thing down, one day. So these reinforcement would be ~15" in length, with the 2" gaps centered over the studs. Glue up, stick the pieces in place, add a few nails to hold it while the glue sets.

Second, for the lip, I would use a smaller maybe 3/4" x 2" lip to the front with glue and nails. Placed at a right angle, of course. If I want more support than that I'd add a second strip back from the front one. This one might be easier to put in with counter sunk screws from the bottom to keep it in place while the glue dries.  A single 2x4 at the front lip is excessively heavy and also will look crude, IMO, unless you have a jointer to clean them up. They will also not glue too great, raw, unless you have a bazillion clamps. Also might want to look into channel iron with pre-drilled screw holes. Angle iron (or individual small, predrilled right angle brackets) might also be good to secure the rear of the shelf to the batten, but IMO it takes more work to drill and screw. And the screws should be very close the the inside corner where it goes into the batten, unless the steel is very thick and rigid (and that means heavy and expensive), so there's not necessarily room for a good angle for a drill.

Last thing I would add is more triangular brackets/supports, because in my estimation that's the last thing it actually needs. Highly doubtful that this is how and why it failed. Plus your studs are every 16". So if you add more brackets you would end up with either 3x as many or an extra bracket 1/3 the distance between the existing ones. I'd have maybe built it same as this guy did, every 4 feet. I suppose you could play musical chairs and shift some of the existing brackets to make them every 32". I bet the pieces of MDF for your shelve are a multiple of 4 feet in length, each, though. I'd make sure there are actual screws, at least 2 or 3 small screws, through the MDF and into the top of each bracket. Spaced out so that the MDF doesn't tear out under high load. The one single screw at the bottom is probably fine, so long as the back of the shelf is rigidly affixed to the back batten.

*this is where a slide hammer might come in handy. I've often wanted one but never got around to buying or making one, yet. I might jerry jig something up if this were needed. I think it might be easier than turning into spiderman. Screw into the bottom of the shelf and smack it back down, tight. Also smacking the front of the shelves with a 3 lb mallet towards the wall to get it to reseat, properly, where the nails pulled out and away. Another possible method is to drill some large holes through the bottom of the shelves at the back, big enough to slip a small clamp through, to clamp them down to the back batten while gluing in the reinforcements.