cheap metal shelving question

[Tonyz]

you all know the stuff, light gauge angle legs with holes all the length and shelving etc etc

well I want to mount the legs/uprights to the walls but then would love the option of adjusting the shelves but with the nut & bolt used that dont seem it will work. I may be not thinking straight but there must be a way.

[Bohdan]

Bolt them to the wall using a spacer to enable you to slip a shelf bolt in between the wall and frame.

[Tonyz]

thinking more about this buy bulk pkt nutsnbolts and fix them every 2nd hole....nah stupid idea

[China]

I you do not already have the shelves take a trip down to De young salvage the have some ex supermarket shelving at the moment

[Tonyz]

er thanks for the offer but 8 hour drive one way.....pass, I have a load of ex supermarket already for another job and would have been LOT cheaper than Deyongs

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

I'd mount the rear legs to the wall with stand-offs; it wouldn't need to be by much... 1 cm would do.

Bolt the bottom & top shelves in as per normal, except for the back screws add a nut as a spacer between the back of the shelf and the leg. This should hold the legs firmly in place, one nut 'wider' than a shelf.

On the rest of the shelves, on the back side put a pair of screws in backwards (head on the inside) and screw on the nut. You should be able to pick a pair of holes on the back legs, angle the shelf until the ends of the bolts slip in - basically they've become positioning lugs - and then fit nuts'n'bolts to the front of the shelf as per usual.

Mind you, as the back of these adjustable shelves aren't 'fastened' to the legs, I'm uncertain as to how strong this would be. Especially given how flimsy the legs can be.

On mine I've two sets of shelves stacked on top of each other, with the legs overlapping by two holes and a pair of bolts in each joint. There's also a shelf fitted permanently at this joint for extra rigidity. I still had to affix the tops to the wall to prevent racking...

[Tonyz]

12mm plywood bolted and screwed at each end helps the strengthening..thank for your advice.

[rrich]

In another life, I purchased a set of shelves like that for a software library. The purchase was a comedy of errors because people didn't listen to what was being asked. But that is a tale for the pub and some flavored ice cubes.

The shelves are designed to be held in place by clips snapped into the slots in the uprights. The shelves then snapped into the clips.

Not a very stable structural arrangement. My shelves were made by Burroughs and along with the shelves, clips and uprights, some braces were sold. These were very expensive steel, not quite rigid, braces 3/32 inch by 1½ inch and between 4 and 5 feet long. In each end of the brace a very precise ¼ inch hole was drilled. (It is this precision of the hole diameter that made the braces so expensive.) The braces were intended to make an "X" that was attached to the end and back uprights. These braces did not fit well and required some filing with a rat tail file in the uprights. Don't tell anyone but I drilled a less than precision ¼ inch hole at the center of the "X". In the hole I put a ¼ inch bolt with nut, Loctite and a star washer between the two braces. All this helped but in the final analysis a $20 tip to the building maintenance man and his welding machine fixed the rigidity issues at the expense of slightly burned carpet.

The city building inspectors required that the shelves be anchored to the wall for earthquake stability. They got involved after the welding and burned carpet set off the smoke alarms. The fire department made an unexpected visit and out of spite informed the building inspectors.

The wall braces were made from "Z" shaped ¾ inch aluminum bar with holes drilled in each end. The aluminum was easily bent around a bit of steel pipe in a vise. Molly bolts in the wall and ¼ inch bolts in the uprights completed the bracing. The building inspector said that the braces were unconventional but acceptable.

[malb]

Tonto, there are a number of variants to shelving systems, but the one you pictured comes as a flat pack in 900 and 1200 shelf lengths. A byproduct of this is that the uprights are in two pieces and are joined at the middle shelf, so there is no scope to adjust the position of that shelf, it must be in the centre of the uprights to join the half uprights together to make a full height upright.

The shelf rails (long and short) have two outward facing buttons at each end that lock into the uprights. The buttons have a shank about 1mm long to stand the button of the rail surface. The shank diameter is a neat fit in the slots in the uprights, while the buttons a a loose clearance fit through the round holes at the top of the slot. The general assembly technique is to feed the buttons in a rail through the hole in the upright, then tap the rail into position at the bottom of the slot.

Where the centre shelf rails function as joiners for the uprights, the lower button in the rail is located in the top hole of the lower upright, and the top button is located in the bottom slot of the upper upright. This means that the structure tends to be flimsy during assembly, but firms up well once you have a basic structure of a set of top, middle (joiner) and bottom rails locked in place.

I have three sets of 350KG per shelf 1200 wide sets set up and heavily loaded. They have been in their current position for three years and were set up elsewhere for a couple of years. When static, they are great, and totally stable, but they are a nightmare to move assembled because no matter where you try to lift the naked frames, rail buttons will raise in their slots and disengage. I find it best to assemble the frames as close as possible to their final location, then slide or walk them into place with minimal lifting.

With regard to wall mounting, i doubt that it would add any security to them. If you had an uneven floor or similar, it would be better to shim under the uprights to level them. This because there is very little provision for misalignment in the slot and button system.