Shelves for built-ins -

[Peter Stahl]

I stumbled across this, the round ones I was talking about in a previous post. The person that made them used 3/4" X 5" stock and I'm guessing they drilled 1-1/2" holes then cut it in half. See the attached drawing.

[Kevin Groenke]

I used quarter round "ladder type" brackets on a fireplace surround.

I used an old craftsman molding cutter head in a tablesaw to cut the quarter rounds in a wide board with an indexing pin to control height, then ripped the the strips to width.

Why did I use birch in a dark stained oak cabinet?... I have no idea: it's not as noticeable as in the flash photo (I was surprised to see it myself, there are sliding glass paneled doors that hide most of the sidewall of the cabinet - and a bunch of art pottery) I would probably use oak if I did it again.

P1060014.jpg

-kg

[Peter Stahl]

Nice brackets Kevin. Looks like a cross between the Sawtooth and the 1/2 round.

[Philip Berman]

RE: 'ladder brackets' or 'sawtooth standards' - that was where I was originally headed. To my eye, the [matching] walnut on the interior is preferable to looking at unused holes. My concern with this is if I decide to swap out the wood shelves for glass - in order for the brackets to work the glass would need to be notched to go around the standards. Glass is expensive as it is, does anyone know if having shelves made with those notches will make it unreasonably expensive?

[Peter Stahl]

You could drill 2 holes in each bracket for shelf supports. The glass would also hold the supports in place.

[Philip Berman]

Brilliant, thank you.

[Greg Portland]

Yes, the first time I encountered the problem. It is a big pain. You want to color the nearly-white core dark enough that it doesn't stick out against a darkish veneer. That means you need a rather dark stain. You need to get the stain inside the holes, but not get any on the surface. This is really really difficult. Inlaying the hardwood strip is much easier.

An easy way to do this is with water based stain. Pre-finish your boards (keep glue edges clean) and then use a Q-tip to stain the hole. Quickly wipe up any excess (it won't go through the finish on the board face) and you've got a cleanly stained hole. Pre finishing the board is also easier (flat pieces versus fully assembled). I used black stain to color the interior of the walnut ply.

[Philip Berman]

our friends at LeeValley have 'dark oxide' 5mm sleeves/pins which I've just ordered. the sleeves will take care of the color difference, the 'dark oxide' should make them fairly invisible, and I went with 5mm for the same purpose. I made a drilling guide (really just a piece of wood with a hole in it and a couple of 1/4" pieces of dowel to register the placement horizontally) which I tested on another cabinet and know that I can drill additional holes if needed sometime down the road.

Thank you everyone for your input.

Philip