Monday, August 12, 2019

The Shelves

     They use one shelf I'd cut and finished four or five years ago and about given up on installing, plus a long one I had used in the kitchen of my previous house:
     The long shelf was finished with boiled linseed oil, which on pine darkens over time to a pretty color.  The shorter one, I used some stain/finish combination and I'm not as happy with it.  "Beading" on the edges of the shelves was done with a tool made by driving a large, slotted, flathead woodscrew into a small scrap of board; the sharp edges of the slot cut a nice groove, with the distance from the top and bottom of the shelf set by how far above the surface the head of the screw sticks out.

     Vertical supports are just pipe flanges and precut pipe sections.  You can buy flanges really inexpensively online, but the quality isn't great; some castings weren't square to the tapped hole and some needed to have the mounting-screw holes drilled out.  1/4"-20 carriage bolts hold them to the shelves.  If I had used the same size pipe for each level, the flanges could have been back to back

     The table was from one of the big chain stores, an inexpensive Mission-style side table.

     Equipment in the picture includes a big RME-45 receiver, a Multi-Elmac AF-68 transmitter, and a Millen transmatch, with a homebrew antenna switch, a Ten-Tec transmatch and an RME VHF converter

5 comments:

Ken said...

Nice work. Never tried straight linseed oil, though I have used "boat sauce" (four parts linseed, one part turpentine) for similar jobs.

Montana said...

For quality pipe flanges, visit a plumbing supply wholesaler. Most have a cash account available for the person off the street Quality pipe companies only source US made black iron fittings because of the exceptionally poor quality of the castings in Chinese pipe fittings. Holding a big box store fitting next to a quality fitting is shocking. As someone that does boiler work, it scares me when I see a person walk out of a store with that stuff.

Roberta X said...

The ones I used were...adequate for shelf supports. I should have gone to Winthrop Supply! Next time, I will.

The other option would be Reel Pipe & Valve, downtown, a huge wholesale supply house. My employer even has an account, which usually opens the door for individual purchase. We have a number of studio monitor stands made from heavy-duty rolling chair bases and (cleaned and painted) black iron pipe. VESA-pattern to pipe clamp adaptors are widely available and by starting with large diameter pipe and using a T and reducer at monitor height (and another T at the base), you can run the cables up the pipe and make a neat job of it.

Roberta X said...

Ken: gotta use the boiled version of linseed oil if you want a good cure! Don't ask how I know....

Other than a slight tendency to go exothermic when curing (mostly an issue with the rags used for application (rinse them in thinner and let them dry on a flat surface that won't burn), it's lovely to work with, with a pleasant aroma and non-toxic when cured. It has become my default wood finish for indoor use, especially now that I have had a chance to see its long-term performance. It just gets better-looking over time! Pine darkens wonderfully; harder woods don't do that as much but it holds up well.

Ken said...

Roger on the boiled linseed oil -- the traditional boat sauce recipe calls for raw, but I don't see much raw linseed in my local lazy man's retail outlets. Could probably find some if I were willing to make more of an effort...wonder if Samsel (marine supply house in the Cleveland Flats) has some?