Shelf span.

[davin]

Hi all,

I am sure that it has been discussed before, couldn`t find anything through the search facility though.

Right, customer wants oak shelves in an alcove.
preferably without centre support ( as in a bracket or cobles ?)

span just short of 1.6 metres, shelf 300mm deep, 30 thick.
Will have oak batten, 40mm by 20mm on three sides.

Would you ?

regards davin

 

[wizer]

My Friend, you need The Sagulator !!!

 

[johnf]

Yes go ahead the oak will be plenty strong enough

 

[chingerspy]

Wow the sagulator is very nice there Tom

Just put your data in Davin and if I did it correctly it says you should be fine upto about 22kg of weight on that shelf with their target sag.

 

[davin]

thanks for that,

I have just been sagulating.Very useful.

But I think I needed someone to say, "yeah dont worry mate, that will be plenty strong enough",


Which they have.
Anyone know a good timber yard with machining facilities in East Sussex?
Alsford timber quoted me £480 +vat for 3 sheets of veneered mdf and oak for the shelves plus a few other pieces.....

 

[davin]

thanks,
I guessed about 20 kg load.

 

[Dan-K]

With a 1.6m shelf in our household I'd be working on about 60kg load...we got some heavy books :lol:

 

[Ironballs]

The sagulator is great isn't it. I used it before roughing out plans for my bookcase project

 

[Sgian Dubh]

As Dan-K says, if it's books this shelf has to carry, a typical loading per 300 mm length is about 11.5 kg (or 25 lb per lineal foot). That works out at a total load of about 61 kg or roughly 132 lbs.

If the shelf is supported at either end and has a batten fixed to the wall that runs the full length at the back on the underside you will have plenty of strength. Without the fixed batten at the back edge there will be significant sag if the load is made up of books or any other form of heavy load. Slainte.

 

[Richard D]

Could you do it by (say) sinking some threaded bar into the wall? If you were asked to put up four oak shelves, approx. 1" thick, across an alcove of about 3.5-4.0 metres? The design brief has the shelves running along load-bearing walls, with load-bearing walls at either end of the shelf, but the client doesn't want any visible bracketing/battening? And to make life that little bit harder, as well as wanting each shelf to be one piece of oak, the client says that the house is very dry (underfloor heating on pretty much all the time), and he's had problems with virtually every piece of wood in the place shrinking noticeably as a result.

And if it can be done, who wants the job?

 

[Ironballs]

1.6m isn't too great, but if you're talking about 3-4m then a) good luck finding timber of that length of the type you're after and when you do find it prepare to splash the cash and b) you need to start thinking about not building in the solid but perhaps making torsion boxes instead. Stronger and lighter but about 10x the effort to make

 

[tinfoil]

I know this is not oak but, following on from the Ironballs suggestion of torsion boxes, I made these for a client last year:

Not torsion boxes either but ply-faced hollow core doors. Cut to size (2 shelves per door), keeping the front and one end, inserting and glueing softwood batten in the two cut sides, routing a slot on three sides (stopped on the ends) and sliding on to matching ply strips firmly screwed to the wall.

Relatively simple, hidden supports and happily loaded with books ever since.

tinfoil