Floating Shelf

I needed an additional platform to contain a monitor and video recorder for the home security camera. It will be in a nearly crowded corner of the library where my wife's desktop computer and printer are located.  This called for a floating shelf attached to the two adjacent walls (corner) requiring no support bracket.  The torsion box construction (which had been discussed in past blogs) is the natural lightweight but rigid structure. Introduced here a new after market tool (fixture) designed for the table saw (yellow item, 3rd photo below) that makes cutting the dadoes for the skeletal frame without marking and measuring (believe it or not).

A rough sketch of the skeleton structure of the shelf helps to locate the cross joinery.

1- inch work pieces were ripped on the table saw.  The fixture in yellow allows for perfectly accurate indexing of the dadoes.  I can still cut those dadoes by marking the pieces one by one but this inexpensive indexing tool makes the cut uniformly, accurately, and rapidly.  See next three photos.

The cross pieces fastened by clamps and glue (no nails or screws needed)

The joinery of the cross members are tight and consistently accurate.

The torsion box is defined by the skeleton and a cladding of thin 1/4 inch plywood.  Tip: a cross cut sled makes cutting the wide pieces safely and accurately (next two photos below). 

Liberal amount of glue was applied to the skeleton as shown below.

A pneumatic pin nailer does a great job of  keeping the plywood skin tightly in place until the glue dries.

The floating shelf relies on an anchor in the form of two pieces in the L-configuration attached very securely to the wall.  The shelf has two channels that will allow the shelf to slide into them.

Two adjacent sides of the shelf have 1-1/4 inch channels that will slide into the support brackets (next three photos below).

The brackets are fastened with long screws into the studs behind the drywall. It is critical that the brackets are attached that way. 

I drilled the holes for the cables and power cords to go through from the cameras and router to the recorder and monitor.

A special attachment to the drill (shown below) makes it easy to drive screws without the drill chuck hitting the wall.  This attachment is solely for this purpose (an impossible task if one must drive the screws at 90 deg vertical right next to a wall).  This is one of those accessories that seldom get used but very critical when the work calls for it. (One option is to just nail it down and glued - making the shelf permanently installed - only a major renovation will move it)

It is important to note that the floating shelf is a torsion box because: (a) it must be light weight; (b) it is rigid as to withstand flexing or bending from the load. The floating shelf construction has been around for a while but the torsion box construction here was done with the new indexing fixture.

Additional Tips for laying out the camera cables.

(1) Use a glue gun to secure the wires to both bricks, concrete or dry wall.  It is a lot neater without the unsightly staples, nails or screws.

The shop made wooden "grommets" (rectangles as shown will be painted later)

The cable here is visible but it is in the laundry area (no space in the attic area to comfortably lay it out from there).  Nevertheless, a glue gun keeps it neat and secured.

  

DIY LED Home Lighting

Home lighting evolution had come a long way from Edison's first incandescent bulb to fluorescent lamps to today's LEDs. And LEDs have also come a long way from tiny indicator lights in electronic equipment and car dashboards. They're now in our flash lights, cars and now finding their way more and more into our homes.  There are LED light bulbs and LED tubes to replace fluorescent fixtures but they're still quite costly - definitely more expensive than regular incandescent and fluorescent lights. BUT LED strips that come in 16 feet and bulk in rolls of 50 to 150 ft length are now widely available online and ...

More significantly they've come down in price and much more user friendly.  Only tool I used here is a pair of scissors. Yes, they can be cut to length and more significantly, soldering is a thing of the past with the new breed of lighting kits. As late as a couple of years ago I had to solder cut joints.

Only negative, if I must come up with one, is that they are much too bright if viewed directly head on - too glaring for most folks to stare at directly.  However, they're perfect for upward indirect lighting, counter lighting and desk lamps.  What does LED have to do with woodworking? Some woodworkers are converting their shop lights, task lights for close up work are now mostly LEDs and, of course, they're perfect for custom desk lamps as I have done in earlier projects (check archived blog or open link below):  

http://easywoodworking-tolerba.blogspot.com/2015/10/led-desk-lamp-30.html

Advantages of strip LED lighting: (a) very low power consumption and so efficient that most of the energy is converted to light and very little to heat (it is actually cool to the touch; (b) bendable to fit contours and can be cut to length; (c) no glass bulb to shatter or break; (d) long hours of operation many times over the life of incandescent or fluorescent bulbs.

One of the fluorescent lamp fixtures above the display/book shelves in the library had a burned out capacitor. Capacitors can be replaced (done them in more than one occasion) but this time I decided to replace the entire fixtures with LED

I ordered two kits, each a roll of 16.4 feet with a low voltage 12 volt adapters, extra connecting clamp and a couple of plastic connectors.  Each kit was $15 but you can order the lights only for half that ($7.50).  

If you did not throw away old and obsolete electronic equipment that accumulated over the years, some of those adapters can be used, provided their output DC voltage is 12 V, which by the way is a common voltage.  9 volt output adapters will work too but the light output will be diminished a bit.

Instructions were very clear. Pictures speak for themselves. To cut, make sure to make them at one of many marked interval sections.

One end of the strip has a connecting clamp that will plug into the adapter.

Remove the paper backing to expose the adhesive.

A pair of scissors easily cut away the extra length.

The adapters are shown plugged into the power outlet.  These adapters can handle AC input of anywhere from 100 to 220 volt outlets.

With the strip light turned off

Indirect lighting, as the term suggests, provide soft diffused illumination.  In this case, the strip lights are hidden from eye level view.  Once turned on, soft but ample lighting will illuminate the entire room. 

Next project is to replace fluorescent fixtures by the ceiling in the living room area (on the off position). 

Fluorescent light fixtures are hidden from view but the bulbs and/or capacitors need to be replaced from time to time.

The excess strip, about 1-1/2 foot long, will be part of a future desk lamp project. Here I just used one the several old adapters from obsolete electronic devices. 

Below are some of the previous desk lamp projects. In 2015 I was able to buy a few samplers from a manufacturer that provided various short strips of varying light effects and brightness to give consumers ideas on what to expect from LED. I will be revising the lamp designs so it's time to make some revisions (Next blog later)

Special Tip in Construction

From the blog archive you will find, "Quick Projects with Fewest Tools", were pocket holes were used exclusively to join the parts of this stand but it was not quite finished.  For an explanation this blog finishes the project after two years.

Two years ago I did the above project with pocket hole joinery with the intention of adding a removable shelf half way down supported by the middle rails. I did not get around to doing it although later on another project I did construct a couple of middle shelves with center holes to accommodate non-draining pots for plants (see next two photos below).

The shelves were notched to fit perfectly with all the four corners where the legs extend downwards from top to bottom.

Creating the notches on the shelf to get around the four legs is typically done one particular way. Cut the shelf to its rectangular dimension and then with a two-cut operation at the table saw all four notches are created. The problem with that method is cutting the notches with the work piece vertically on its edge along the table saw. Most woodworkers are not comfortable doing that. There is another way.

Preparing the stock by joining a few scrap pieces of pine.

Cut the board to the dimension to fit accurately within one inside width.

One width of the board fits within two opposing legs as shown. Cut one piece that fits along the rail as shown and another one for the opposite side

Note the exposed rail in this photo. A piece cut to that dimension will cover it up and once glued (next photo) to the board, a perfect notch is created.