Building Custom Shelving Units with Metal Frames and Walnut Boards

One of my recent woodworking projects was to build custom shelving units with metal frames and walnut boards. I wanted to create a unique and functional piece that would showcase woven goods, but also be easy to assemble and disassemble. In this article, I'll take you through the step-by-step process of building these custom shelving units.

The first step in building the shelving units was to prepare the walnut boards. I started by cutting off excess glue from the joint where two boards met. The joint had turned out really nice, and I wanted to make sure it was smooth and even. After sanding down the top of the board, everything was ready for the next step. Next, I set up my dado stack on the table saw and trimmed off the ends of the walnut boards to fit inside the metal frames. This would create a snug fit between the shelves and the frames.

To add some flexibility to the shelving units, I created hanging rods using thinner pieces of wood. I cut these rods to size, added rabbits to the end for a secure fit in the brackets, and then trimmed them down to size. These rods would be used to hang blankets or larger items that needed to be draped over the top of the shelves.

One of the challenges I faced while building this project was dealing with sharp edges on the top of the walnut boards. To solve this problem, I ran each side of the top edge over the router table to give a small round over. This would prevent any snagging or damage to the materials being hung over the shelves.

To secure the shelves and rods to the frames, I used 1/4-20 bolts with nuts at the bottom. To do this, I had to drill holes in each of the walnut board pieces. However, since the holes were close to the end grain, there was a risk that they could blow out and create tear-out around the edges. To mitigate this risk, I did some test drilling on a piece of wood with similar dimensions and found that using a brad point bit resulted in clean, precise holes. The brad point bit's tiny brad point at the center held it exactly where I placed it, ensuring consistent results.

The finished shelves fit snugly into the brackets, providing a sturdy and rigid structure for displaying woven goods. To make them work together as a single unit, I created a simple connector using Fusion 360, which I printed out in four pieces to fit into each corner of the frame. These connectors allowed me to easily assemble the shelves together, creating a seamless joint between the two units.

One of the benefits of this design is its minimalism and flexibility. The shelving units can be used individually or together, making them perfect for craft shows or other events where space is limited. To accommodate larger items, additional shelves can be added to create a more substantial structure. This design also allows for easy disassembly, as each component can be removed from the others.

In conclusion, building custom shelving units with metal frames and walnut boards was a rewarding project that showcased my creativity and woodworking skills. With its unique design and flexibility, this shelving unit is perfect for displaying woven goods or other items that require a stylish and functional storage solution.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey I'm Bob and I like to make stuff today we're gonna make some display shells that you can break down and take with you my friend alex is a weaver she makes beautiful hand-woven goods and sells them at craft shows but she needed a way to display these so she asked me to make her a set of shelves but she wanted these shelves to be collapsible so she could break them down and put them in the back of her car that would mean that the longest piece of these shelves needed to be shorter than four feet so we worked on the design back and forth and went for an aesthetic that was kind of an antique industrial look combination of wood and metal I think I came up with something pretty cool check it out I needed to make four identical frames and I made them out of 3/4 inch square tubing I use the horizontal bandsaw to cut down all of these pieces and that's a really great way to get a nice clean cut on the ends of these I cut eight long pieces for the vertical parts and eight shorter pieces for the horizontal parts then that just laid those pieces out into a frame and made sure to square up each one of the corners before tack welding them together it's always great to tack something like this together before doing the full welds to avoid warping from all the heat I got those simple box frames finished the last thing is to grind down the welds on the outside faces but I'm also eventually going to have to clean up all the surfaces before finish so I'm gonna wait on that the next step is going to be to make some brackets eventually what I'm gonna want is a c-shaped channel that I can slide in a piece of wood and then they'll be a through-hole that I can drop in a pin that'll lock the whole thing together and to make that C I'm gonna start with the same score tubing that I used for the frame and start by drilling the holes in the top then I'll go back and chop it into sections it'll make sense let me show you so I used a punch to make a small start here with a drill bit to go into and I'm going to use bolts that are a quarter inch wide so this is a 5/16 so the hole will be just a little bit bigger than the bolt that goes in it there was a small burr left around the hole after drilling so I sanded that off and then took each one of these through the bandsaw to take off one side this turns that square tubing into a C champ I've got all those brackets cut I just need to sand them down so that they're not sharp these are going to get welded on the inside of the frame like this so that the shelves can slide in then the holes are going to allow for a bolt to drop through you can put on a nut at the bottom to lock the whole thing together so now I've got to clean these up and then weld these onto the frames I've got the frames all welded up so the next step is to grind down the welds that are on the outside face I want those to be smooth but then I also need to clean off all the surfaces so that I can black in this metal I'm going to use the solution to do that later on I also need to put on these little brackets I made and weld those into place so we're going to clean this up well these on next hey really quickly I wanted to let you know about a bunch of new stuff that we have in the online store we've got these super comfortable hoodies we've got a whole bunch of new t-shirt designs including because you asked for it clamp champ shirts we've got a bunch of different color variations and some of the other new designs are super awesome if you want to check them out we'll put a link right up there I got rid of most of the weld with a grinding wheel and then after that moved over to a flap disc to clean off all the surface and get a nice finish if you're curious we did a whole video on angle grinders and all the different things that you can use them for go check that out I've got these brackets ready to put on now and when I weld them into place I need to make sure that they are perfectly parallel and that they are the same distance from the top edge so that when I put in the Shelf it slides in and doesn't bind and to do that I'm going to take a piece of wood and actually make a little bracket that connects the two metal brackets so that when I lay them in place they are in line and I can keep them Square to the outside edge I've got all of the clips put on to this one and so now I just need to clean up those welds a little bit grind down a few more things and then do this whole thing three more times to finish off these pieces I'm going to blacken them with this stuff you just wipe it on and it blackens the steel and gives it a nice antique look for the shelves we decided on solid walnut I took the pieces that I had and started cutting them down to rough length to make sure we had enough so that we could glue them together to make panels for the shelves I've got these pieces cut down now to roughly the right length they're still very rough on all the edges and to get them to stick together and make a nice panel we got to clean up the outside faces now we made a whole bits video on how to mill lumber and if you want to find out all the process to get these to cleanly stick together go check that one out I lined up those boards in the way that I wanted them to look as a shelf and then I made some marks across the seam between the two boards those marks are gonna show me where to cut biscuit slots I'm gonna use a biscuit joiner for this you line up this line with the line on your piece of wood and it cuts a little slot in the side of the piece once you've got those two cavities you slide in a biscuit a little piece of wood in between them and put lots and lots of glue the biscuit keeps the two pieces of wood aligned vertically while the glue sets up let's do it after I got these boards out of the clamp I cleaned up the glue line with a card scraper this is a great way to get a really nice finish on top of the surface I got rid of all the glue and the joint turned out really nice between these two boards I did go back and sand the top of the board just a little bit to get it all nice and smooth all the way around now the next step is to make it ready to fit inside the metal frames to do that I'm going to set up the dado stack on my table saw and then trim off the ends so that they will fit inside the bracket semi I got the rabbits put on the end of these pieces and now this section fits perfectly into the brackets on the steel frame now the next thing is to take a thinner piece of wood and cut the same rabbits on the end of that this is going to get stripped down into two separate pieces that are going to act as hanging rods for blankets or larger items that need to be draped over the top so I'm going to add that rabbit and then cut those down so now I've got three pieces cut down with the tenon on the end so it'll fit inside the brackets and these are gonna work great for hanging blankets over the one problem is that there are still sharp edges on the top and I don't want to snag the material that's being hung over this so I'm going to run each side of the top edge over the router table to give a small round over now one of the last things I need to do here is secure the shelves and the rods to the frames and to do that I'm going to drop down 1/4 20 bolt through both pieces put on a nut at the bottom and lock it together and to do that I need to drill a hole in each of these pieces of wood so I placed the ends of each one of these pieces down inside the brackets and Mark the circle that needs to be drilled out another problem is that this hole that needs to be drilled is really really close to the end grain being that close to the end grain there's a good chance that that hole could blow it out and you get some tear out right around the end that's not going to be secure so I did a test on a piece that's the same thickness and at the end grain it turns out that it works really really well and it didn't tear out and I think that's partly because I used a brad point bit a brad point bit is like this it's got a very tiny brad point right in the center and that holds the bit exactly where you place it it doesn't spin and it doesn't wander as it drills the hole it turned out to be a really clean hole right there at the end grain so I think it's going to work out so the holes actually worked out really well there is a little bit of play in these two pieces but that's because the holes are slightly bigger than the bolts so that they can go in and out easily once you get everything locked together and there's nuts to hold these bolts in tight everything should become a little bit more rigid so now that I know everything fits all the holes are drilled it's just time to finish up these and then the whole thing will be done I've got both of these shelving units pretty much finished now and they can work next to each other as two separate pieces just fine now the original idea from my friend was to have a single shelving unit and so I wanted to make these flexible that they could work individually or together so to make them work together I measured the inside and the outside of the square tubing with some calipers took those dimensions into fusion 360 and modeled up a really simple connector I printed out four of these pieces one to fit into each corner and they are modeled to fit really snugly right down into place so now she can add these to one set of shelves and put the other set right on top I'm really happy with how these things turned out they're super minimal and that's a good thing I like the combo of the metal and the walnut together and they do definitely show off the woven goods really nicely now depending on what you wanted to display you could add more shelves and if you did that it's just gonna make it more sturdy and more robust but it would still break down into relatively small pieces I think something like this would work great no matter what you're selling at a craft show it's a great way to be able to display stuff and then break it down and take it with you if you've got some other ideas for things like this please let me know down in the comments I've got lots of other videos that you may be interested in check some of those out and don't forget to subscribe that's it for this one guys thanks for watching see you next time some beautiful handmade woven woven Goods weaves she's a weaver weaves things we've got these super comfortable hood it would I don't know how to endhey I'm Bob and I like to make stuff today we're gonna make some display shells that you can break down and take with you my friend alex is a weaver she makes beautiful hand-woven goods and sells them at craft shows but she needed a way to display these so she asked me to make her a set of shelves but she wanted these shelves to be collapsible so she could break them down and put them in the back of her car that would mean that the longest piece of these shelves needed to be shorter than four feet so we worked on the design back and forth and went for an aesthetic that was kind of an antique industrial look combination of wood and metal I think I came up with something pretty cool check it out I needed to make four identical frames and I made them out of 3/4 inch square tubing I use the horizontal bandsaw to cut down all of these pieces and that's a really great way to get a nice clean cut on the ends of these I cut eight long pieces for the vertical parts and eight shorter pieces for the horizontal parts then that just laid those pieces out into a frame and made sure to square up each one of the corners before tack welding them together it's always great to tack something like this together before doing the full welds to avoid warping from all the heat I got those simple box frames finished the last thing is to grind down the welds on the outside faces but I'm also eventually going to have to clean up all the surfaces before finish so I'm gonna wait on that the next step is going to be to make some brackets eventually what I'm gonna want is a c-shaped channel that I can slide in a piece of wood and then they'll be a through-hole that I can drop in a pin that'll lock the whole thing together and to make that C I'm gonna start with the same score tubing that I used for the frame and start by drilling the holes in the top then I'll go back and chop it into sections it'll make sense let me show you so I used a punch to make a small start here with a drill bit to go into and I'm going to use bolts that are a quarter inch wide so this is a 5/16 so the hole will be just a little bit bigger than the bolt that goes in it there was a small burr left around the hole after drilling so I sanded that off and then took each one of these through the bandsaw to take off one side this turns that square tubing into a C champ I've got all those brackets cut I just need to sand them down so that they're not sharp these are going to get welded on the inside of the frame like this so that the shelves can slide in then the holes are going to allow for a bolt to drop through you can put on a nut at the bottom to lock the whole thing together so now I've got to clean these up and then weld these onto the frames I've got the frames all welded up so the next step is to grind down the welds that are on the outside face I want those to be smooth but then I also need to clean off all the surfaces so that I can black in this metal I'm going to use the solution to do that later on I also need to put on these little brackets I made and weld those into place so we're going to clean this up well these on next hey really quickly I wanted to let you know about a bunch of new stuff that we have in the online store we've got these super comfortable hoodies we've got a whole bunch of new t-shirt designs including because you asked for it clamp champ shirts we've got a bunch of different color variations and some of the other new designs are super awesome if you want to check them out we'll put a link right up there I got rid of most of the weld with a grinding wheel and then after that moved over to a flap disc to clean off all the surface and get a nice finish if you're curious we did a whole video on angle grinders and all the different things that you can use them for go check that out I've got these brackets ready to put on now and when I weld them into place I need to make sure that they are perfectly parallel and that they are the same distance from the top edge so that when I put in the Shelf it slides in and doesn't bind and to do that I'm going to take a piece of wood and actually make a little bracket that connects the two metal brackets so that when I lay them in place they are in line and I can keep them Square to the outside edge I've got all of the clips put on to this one and so now I just need to clean up those welds a little bit grind down a few more things and then do this whole thing three more times to finish off these pieces I'm going to blacken them with this stuff you just wipe it on and it blackens the steel and gives it a nice antique look for the shelves we decided on solid walnut I took the pieces that I had and started cutting them down to rough length to make sure we had enough so that we could glue them together to make panels for the shelves I've got these pieces cut down now to roughly the right length they're still very rough on all the edges and to get them to stick together and make a nice panel we got to clean up the outside faces now we made a whole bits video on how to mill lumber and if you want to find out all the process to get these to cleanly stick together go check that one out I lined up those boards in the way that I wanted them to look as a shelf and then I made some marks across the seam between the two boards those marks are gonna show me where to cut biscuit slots I'm gonna use a biscuit joiner for this you line up this line with the line on your piece of wood and it cuts a little slot in the side of the piece once you've got those two cavities you slide in a biscuit a little piece of wood in between them and put lots and lots of glue the biscuit keeps the two pieces of wood aligned vertically while the glue sets up let's do it after I got these boards out of the clamp I cleaned up the glue line with a card scraper this is a great way to get a really nice finish on top of the surface I got rid of all the glue and the joint turned out really nice between these two boards I did go back and sand the top of the board just a little bit to get it all nice and smooth all the way around now the next step is to make it ready to fit inside the metal frames to do that I'm going to set up the dado stack on my table saw and then trim off the ends so that they will fit inside the bracket semi I got the rabbits put on the end of these pieces and now this section fits perfectly into the brackets on the steel frame now the next thing is to take a thinner piece of wood and cut the same rabbits on the end of that this is going to get stripped down into two separate pieces that are going to act as hanging rods for blankets or larger items that need to be draped over the top so I'm going to add that rabbit and then cut those down so now I've got three pieces cut down with the tenon on the end so it'll fit inside the brackets and these are gonna work great for hanging blankets over the one problem is that there are still sharp edges on the top and I don't want to snag the material that's being hung over this so I'm going to run each side of the top edge over the router table to give a small round over now one of the last things I need to do here is secure the shelves and the rods to the frames and to do that I'm going to drop down 1/4 20 bolt through both pieces put on a nut at the bottom and lock it together and to do that I need to drill a hole in each of these pieces of wood so I placed the ends of each one of these pieces down inside the brackets and Mark the circle that needs to be drilled out another problem is that this hole that needs to be drilled is really really close to the end grain being that close to the end grain there's a good chance that that hole could blow it out and you get some tear out right around the end that's not going to be secure so I did a test on a piece that's the same thickness and at the end grain it turns out that it works really really well and it didn't tear out and I think that's partly because I used a brad point bit a brad point bit is like this it's got a very tiny brad point right in the center and that holds the bit exactly where you place it it doesn't spin and it doesn't wander as it drills the hole it turned out to be a really clean hole right there at the end grain so I think it's going to work out so the holes actually worked out really well there is a little bit of play in these two pieces but that's because the holes are slightly bigger than the bolts so that they can go in and out easily once you get everything locked together and there's nuts to hold these bolts in tight everything should become a little bit more rigid so now that I know everything fits all the holes are drilled it's just time to finish up these and then the whole thing will be done I've got both of these shelving units pretty much finished now and they can work next to each other as two separate pieces just fine now the original idea from my friend was to have a single shelving unit and so I wanted to make these flexible that they could work individually or together so to make them work together I measured the inside and the outside of the square tubing with some calipers took those dimensions into fusion 360 and modeled up a really simple connector I printed out four of these pieces one to fit into each corner and they are modeled to fit really snugly right down into place so now she can add these to one set of shelves and put the other set right on top I'm really happy with how these things turned out they're super minimal and that's a good thing I like the combo of the metal and the walnut together and they do definitely show off the woven goods really nicely now depending on what you wanted to display you could add more shelves and if you did that it's just gonna make it more sturdy and more robust but it would still break down into relatively small pieces I think something like this would work great no matter what you're selling at a craft show it's a great way to be able to display stuff and then break it down and take it with you if you've got some other ideas for things like this please let me know down in the comments I've got lots of other videos that you may be interested in check some of those out and don't forget to subscribe that's it for this one guys thanks for watching see you next time some beautiful handmade woven woven Goods weaves she's a weaver weaves things we've got these super comfortable hood it would I don't know how to end\n"