So I am about to fit my shelving, the type with rails, as recommended on this group:
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wonder is there a rule for how far apart the rails should be?
I was thinking on a stud wall it has to be where the studs are, so would it be every 60cm? If the stud spacing was 40cm would you fit one every 40cm or would that be too close; would you skip a stud and fit every 80cm?
But as you may remember, I'm not fitting to a stud wall, so is there a rule for solid walls? Or is there no rule of thumb; does it depend on the load on the shelves? Do you fit more rails, more closely for heavy loads?
If yiour subsrate s sioud, and yiou make a fiar job, the limiting facti will noit be teh uprights pulling ou of the walls, it will be the bowing of the shelves.
I put up some of this sort of thing in an alcove once, to take my weighty LPs in the days when LPs were what one had. The shelves (12mm melamine/chip) bowed alarmingly over half a meter span.
The brackets looked a bit sorry too, but the uprights never budged.
You dont say what load youre looking at, nor what type and thickness of shelf. Once you've figured those out, check out the sagulator.
I'm not a big fan of those slotted strips myself, they dont handle the sort of loads I'd expect them to very well, like shelves packed with books. So I'd be inclined to put them on the close side, like 2' apart or maybe 18" for big books.
> I wonder is there a rule for how far apart the rails should be?
Not sure about "rules" although there are some rules of thumb. If doing the classical straight shelf with two supports, then they work best about 20 - 25% of the way in from each side. That way roughly half the shelf is over each bracket (with a slight bias toward wider spacing)
You need to consider the total load, its distribution, the shelf material, depth, and thickness.
If you forget 12mm thick shelving for anything other than lightweight stuff (unless braced with front and rear rails). 19mm chipboard is probably a realistic minimum for a decent shelf. MDF is ok, but tends to sag a bit more.
Worst case would be heavy loads like reference books on say a 10" deep shelf. You would probably need to go at 400mm centres to eliminate sag there.
If the shelves are deeper, you can go to wider spacing. Same for thicker.
For my workshop I used 19mm MDF, and made the shelves 500mm deep, about
1.2m long with a return section 400mm wide against the far wall (they are L shaped shelves that sit in a corner and wrap round it). I got two shelves out of each sheet of 8x4' MDF. I used two uprights on the long side and one on the short side, with deep brackets. The main shelf seems pretty sturdy, while the return gets a bit of sag at the extreme end - so perhaps a pair of uprights on that side would have been preferable.
>>>>> I wonder is there a rule for how far apart the rails should be? >>
If you buy Spur (or similar clones these days) then I would refrain from referring to it as weak - it may be the weakest part of the arrangement, but its certainly more than adequate in my experience. (although I would agree that some of the lightweight ali, or single strip steep stuff has its limitations)
>>>>>>> I wonder is there a rule for how far apart the rails should be? >>>
I have actually stood on a spur bracket plugged into a fixed upright once. It survived, and that is more stress that it is reasonable to expect it to cope with! ;-)
> I wonder is there a rule for how far apart the rails should be?
If the ends of the shelves are free, and there are two rails, I put the brackets a quarter of the board length from the ends so they take equal shares of the weight. Your actual spacing depends on how thick your boards are; how flexible; how heavy the stuff you are putting on them, etc.
> I wonder is there a rule for how far apart the rails should be?
If the ends of the shelves are free, and there are two rails, I put the brackets a quarter of the board length from the ends so they take equal shares of the weight. Your actual spacing depends on how thick your boards are; how flexible; how heavy the stuff you are putting on them, etc.
12mm of what? Would plywood be any better than chi[pbopard or MDF?
but tends to
I have some melamine faced chipboard from the shelves that were already there but can't remember what thickness they are. I will need to buy more shelves though, so I am open to suggestions about the best type of wood to use. I suppose the melamine faced products save the time and trouble of painting them but I suppose that comes at a price? They are for my garage so do not have to be particularly pretty but I think bare mdf or chipboard would benefit from a coat of something so that they don't get ruined if I spill something!
Sorry, I should have said: these are to go in my garage. I think the LP example is a good one: one LP doesn't weigh very much but when you have a collection they weigh a tonne. Individually I don't think any of my tools is that heavy but together, I am sure they will present a decent weight.
I was thinking of using the double slotted type with brackets that protrude the depth of the shelf, like these:
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quite sure what the other ones are that people are talking about: are they the ones where each corner of the shelf is held on by a tiny "tab" of metal? No, they don't sound very secure to me either.
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