rattle can shelf supports

I had a lot of rattle cans (spray paint for you less backwoods types) scattered around my garage in various shelves, boxes and totes. Since they weren't all in one place, or easily visible, I sometimes ended up buying duplicates of ones I already had because I needed a color for a given project and later learned I already had it. I also had some underutilized wall space in front of my car. From this came the idea of using a simple and easy to obtain 1x4 as a shelf. Unfortunately even with the insane prices of lumber these days, the brackets to hold the 1x4 in place and secure the contents on the shelves were even more expensive and I just didn't like any of the ideas I came up with at the hardware store. (That last requirement about holding things on the shelves is because I live in earthquake country around the pacific rim. But even when I was in the midwest I had wind throw spray cans around in my garage once. The solution here I think would have prevented that, and is similar to what is used in a commercial shop I used to work in… they had a strap of plastic fastened to the posts around a shelving unit to keep the contents on the shelf in case of an earthquake, or the door next to the shelves slamming in the wind.)

Printing Recommendations

These brackets are intended to be printed laying on either side, so that the layers are roughly perpendicular to the wall. You can see in some of the shots here that my test prints had to switch from tan to navy part way through because I ran out of tan. I suggest printing with a 2.5mm wall thickness. (4 perimeters for 0.6mm nozzles, 6 for 0.4.) These should be printed with the thickest layers your printer and nozzle will support… I used the 0.32mm Structural profile in PrusaSlicer with a 0.6 nozzle. I suggest you use enough top/bottom layers to have at least 1mm of thickness on each side. Due to the taper of the part, the bottom will end up making that easily, but the top will probably need some additional layers. I did use 10% gyroid infill, which was plenty to support the sloped side. Supports are generally NOT needed. There is one tiny spot where some drooping is likely to occur, that is next to the bottom screw hole on the front face. A TINY organic support there will hold the corner up if you want them to be absolutely perfect. It is totally not needed if your printer is well dialed in and you have bridging perimeter detection turned on.

Installation Requirements

These are designed to be fastened to studs or solid walls with a pair of 2½ inch cabinet screws each. Do not use wood screws or drywall screws: the flared head will split the part at the layers. Cabinet screws with their flat underside are perfect for mounting 3D printed parts to solid walls. If you are mounting to drywall I suggest toggle bolts, choosing ones with a flat underside of the screw heads will prevent splitting the part. If you are mounting to masonry, use appropriate anchors and, again, a flat underside of the screw head is vital. Regardless of what screws you use, you will likely need a 4" or longer driver extension to reach the top screw. You can pre-set the screw in the hole by hand placing it in from the side, then put the driver though from the front to fasten it to the wall.

I encourage you to space a pair of brackets no more than 3 feet apart. This means if you are attaching to normal 16" on center studs in the wall you can put a bracket on every other stud. If you have 2' on center wall studs, I suggest a bracket on every stud. (The installation in the pictures below is into a sheer wall… double ½" drywall over ¾" plywood attached to 16" on center studs… so the brackets are arbitrarily spaced as they are mostly screwed into the plywood, but a few are into the studs behind, just by dumb luck. I started with just 3 brackets along a 10' span… meaning 5' between each, just a few cans of paint thinner caused a bit of a sag on the first shelf, so I added two more brackets in each span, putting them approximately 20" apart.)

The tops of the vertical risers have an opening for 1/8" or 3/16" cord to be run through them. Just double knot it at each end to hold it in place. If you pull it a bit tight before knotting, then the two outermost brackets will bow in slightly, placing tension on the line to keep it held fast.

Installation Suggestion

If you install a bracket at one end, just with a single screw (in the top hole) and slightly loose, you can then place the board along the top of that bracket and one at the other end, then place a level on top of the board and adjust the second bracket up/down to get the shelf level. Screw this one in most of the way as well, keeping some wiggle room so the bracket can spin around a bit, and pull back from the wall an inch or so. Just imagine a level sitting on top of the board in the last image. Do not do what I show in the last image however. That was a mistake… I should not have put all the brackets in place, and I should not have tightened the screws down. At this point you can get the board into the proper final place on the two brackets at the end. If there is nothing in the way, slide the board in from the side from above one bracket into the other, keep going so the end goes past the bracket, then lower it down and slide it back into the bracket at that end. If you can't slide the board far enough to do that because of things in the way then with a partner to help on the other end you can mostly rotate the board down into place by lifting the curved foot up and sliding the board under it. Just be careful not the break the upright.

Once the board is flat, you can tighten down the top screws on both ends and add the bottom screws. Then just go along and add brackets by sliding them on from the front of the shelf and screwing them in, top screw first ensuring that it is snug up against the bottom of the board. If you mount a bracket at every other stud on a typical wall and later see some sagging, you can always come back and add them on the skipped studs later.