Shelves

Designing with Angles and Side-Bent Metal Sheets

• Comments The direct way to set up the shelf is to have 4 angles standing vertically at the 4 corners of the rectangular side-bent metal sheet, angle-to-sheet fastened with screws, at least 1 at each corner. At this point the remaining question is how to support the shelf for rigidity.

Using short flat bars at each corner to produce a small triangular support structure is possible; alternatively wires or long flat bars can diagonally span two angles on a side around their middle sections, producing an X support on each side face (except 1 for accessibility).

Using wires presents assembly problems where tensioning for perpendicular alignment between the angles and the bottom/top platforms is difficult.

The wire and long flat bar X provide minimal resistance against certain torsional forces.

The short flat bars seem like the optimal route for stability and accessibility.