Woodworking

whoo said:

Thinking more on this, I'd definitely use plywood. Those flanges look close-ish to the edge of the shelves. If youre going to pass the pipe through the shelves and rely only on the screws in the flanges to carry the weight, I'd worry about splitting over time if not immediately.

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whoo said:

Personally, id use 3/4 birch plywood and edge band it if you don't want to see the layers. It will not sag. If you're going to use 1 x X pine (which is 3/4 thick), it will hold plenty of weight, but it will bow, dent, scratch etc, very easily.

What tools do you have to process the wood? If you don't have a table saw, you'll have to get HD to cut it for you, then sand it forever until it's nice and smooth.

You might be better off going to a hardwood supply and paying them to make you the shelves S4S (surfaced 4 sides) out of whatever hardwood you want (or plywood). Or a millwork supplier. Then all you have to do is any final sand/finish.

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whoo said:

Not to split hairs about wood, but the pre cut pine you get at the box stores is known as "whitewood" which is a generic term for SPF (Spruce, Pine, or Fir). If you're in the northwest, you might get lucky with a douglas fir, which is very dense for pine. In the southeast, you usually get imported SPF from the nordic countries. It's pretty with few knots, but very soft. Southern yellow pine can be harder than poplar, but I almost never see that in Box stores.

Because 3/4 plywood is made from 5-12 layers of veneer, sometimes with an MDF core, with the wood grain alternating at 90 degrees to the other plys, it's very strong. The glue tends to make it harder, but I'd still go for birch (a hardwood), over pine plywood. Birch sands better, has a tighter and more consistent grain. It will also take stain better if you want to do that. If not, it looks nice with just shellac, lacquer or poly. Pine will look like garage shelves.

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Captain Suave said:

Whatever size wood screw where the head fits the flange, probably #8. Pick a length that won't come out the back of your shelf, accounting for the depth of the fitting, and pre-drill a hole that's slightly smaller than the shaft.

If your post above shows the exact fittings, you'll want a pan or round head. The normal flat head wood screw has a taper undereneath that will cause it to stick out when you tighten it to that fitting.

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Intrinsic said:

I haven't been following all of this but I'll add that

- Plywood is really no more or less ugly than anything else, completely dependent on how you finish it and use it. The Baltic Birch stuff sands and stains nicely and you can always do a veneer of something around the edge if you want to hide it or do a roundover on the edges. It is a very stable material. This isn't OSB or the sanded plywood stuff.

- If you go the pine route you're still going to have to figure out how to build a shelf. One annoying thing about those plans you linked was just starting off with "Grab your 14" x 67" shelf" with no further information. Even the picture on his instructions shows a glued up shelf. So if you don't go with a sheet good that comes in a size you can cut down to 14" x 67" (plylwood sheets usually come in 4' x 8' or 2' x 4' so you'd be stuck going with the 4' x 8' but you'd probably want that for two shelves) you have to make one. That usually involves combining a bunch of boards together.

Plywood tops or MDF tops on workbenches can be good because if they get dinged up or covered in stain or glue you can remove them and replace them with a fresh top. Otherwise you can build your bench out of laminating pine or whatever.

The 14" depth of the shelves and the bench is really inconvenient b/c either way you're out more than 1 sheet of ply. Even if they were 12" you can't get 4 out of one sheet b/c of the kerf of whatever saw you're using. It'd be close. So two 3/4" glued and screwed to give you a beefy bench and regular 3/4" shelves.

Actually, the easiest way to do this is go find some scrap table and rip the top off and tear it down. I've got like 3 tables that could probably be repurposed. Or something from Lowe's or Ikea that is $20 a pop. Or Homegoods or whatever that craft store is where chicks find pillows that say "GIRLS NIGHT OUT!" and "THIS HOUSE BUILT ON LOVE, Y'ALL"

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Captain Suave said:

Up to you. They're workbench shelves, so the entire spectrum from rough cut unfinished to exotic wood, sanded, stained, and coated is acceptable.


Anything with a head larger than the holes in your flange is fine. #14 seems overkill.

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Captain Suave said:

Machine screws have a thread pitch too tight to work well in wood, especially if you're using softwood.

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