Rustic Shelves and Brackets

To fill in a section of wall in our kitchen, my wife found a set of brackets from a company called Cascade Iron Co. After several weeks of intermittent work, they look pretty good!

beautiful-reclaimed-wood-kitchen-cabinet-design-white-modern-stained-wood-kitchen-cabinet-with-brown-ceramic-top-3-tier-rustic-wall-kitchen-shelf-2-clear-glass-jar-white-ceramic-jar-varnished-wooden-k — The original inspiration

Purchase List

6/4 Walnut 7″ x 9′ to make 3 sets of shelves (with a little left over for a 4th)
1″ x 1/4″ x 6′ for 3 sets of brackets
12 1/4″ x 2″ lag bolts for the wall
12 1/4″ x 3/4″ lag bolts for the shelves

Brackets

Not wanting to pay for something that I think I can make, I purchased some 1″ x 1/4″ flat bar from Home Depot and a 6/4 piece of walnut from MacBeath Hardwood.

For the first set I used an oxyacetylene torch to heat each bend and make the bend with a bench vise:

bentShelveBrackets — Getting the bends for each pair as close as possible was difficult and the best method was bending two at a time.

Then I used a plasma torch to get the starter holes in the right spot:

And finally drilled those holes out a little larger than the lags (no photos, but I think you can figure it out). I found that making them a little lose was better so I could fine tune them on the wall.

For the next four sets I didn’t have access to the Acetylene torch so I used a MAP PRO/Oxygen setup. It achieved the same thing, but slower and I used three of the small Oxygen bottles getting it done.

To mount them, I used 1/4″ x 2″ lag bolts for the wall and 1/4″ x 3/4″ lag bolts for the shelves. All holes were predrilled to avoid splitting.

Walnut Shelves

For the shelves, the website shows a construction grade 2×6, but the Walnut seemed fancier and worth the cost. The 6/4 piece I found was about 7″ wide and 9′ long: just enough to make three shelves. I wanted it to be somewhat “rustic” looking and keep some of the rough edge it came with:

IMG_20160517_202636 (1) — Closeup of the rough cut Walnut

The board had one fairly straight edge, so I ripped it to just oversize on the table saw using that edge and then flipped it and made it all the way square. I wanted mostly sharp edges and only sanded the top three exposed edges and the flat surfaces down to 80 grit:

IMG_20160523_184922 — You can still see some of the blade marks on the front edge

IMG_20160523_185519 — This sanding block worked great for not taking too much off at once to get an even profile

I then used some wipe on polyurethane and followed the directions: wipe it on, let it dry for a few hours, lightly sand with 320 grit, remove the dust, and repeat. Four coats looks pretty good without covering the character of the wood too much.

IMG_20160523_205155 — After the third coat of wipe on polyurethane. And putting my welder to good use

Mounting the Shelves

Putting the shelves up required some thought: the top of the tile was level so I measured up 3/4″, placed the first set of brackets to mark the holes, predrilled, and screwed them in.