Weighed and Measured
I'm putting in some shelves. For years, our guests have admired and complimented the lovely book piles we use to adorn the walls of our house. Unfortunately wall pile space is now at a premium. Shelves - which allow me to convert my 90s era 2D piles to compact, modern 3D piles - are in.
Being cheap and lazy, I figured I'd screw some uprights into the wall, stain some shelf boards, and be done with it. Then, I started thinking about stuff. In particular, I needed to figure out how many support thingies I needed for each of my shelves! To know that, I needed to know how much weight each one could support, and then I needed to know how heavy my shelves would be.
Now, a shelf builder disinterested in the fine art of wasting time on ridiculous analysis would have bought one extra upright and a few extra shelf holders and been done. Not me. No sir. Ridiculous analysis is right in my wheelhouse and I wasn't about to pass up an opportunity.
The first (and most entertaining) part of the game was to figure out how much my books would weigh. Time to weigh some books.
Having assembled exactly one linear unit of our heaviest books, it was time for the weigh-in. Any guesses?
The answer was 24 pounds. Now, we can figure out how much the books will weigh from the shelf length!
But, how much will the shelf holders hold?
Home Depot claims one of my uprights will hold 275 lbs each. Awesome! We're done. Uh, but some other website claims they hold 50 lbs/ft. Per foot? What even is that? They're a quarter inch wide. Should I assume one upright can hold 1.04 lbs??? What is "properly installed"? If I put in enough uprights, I think they could hold 1000 lbs/ft. Bleh. I'll use Home Depot's numbers.
Which leaves us with...yeah, 3 uprights will work just fine for a six or an eight foot shelf. Heh. Well. Okay. Time to get started.
Being cheap and lazy, I figured I'd screw some uprights into the wall, stain some shelf boards, and be done with it. Then, I started thinking about stuff. In particular, I needed to figure out how many support thingies I needed for each of my shelves! To know that, I needed to know how much weight each one could support, and then I needed to know how heavy my shelves would be.
Now, a shelf builder disinterested in the fine art of wasting time on ridiculous analysis would have bought one extra upright and a few extra shelf holders and been done. Not me. No sir. Ridiculous analysis is right in my wheelhouse and I wasn't about to pass up an opportunity.
The first (and most entertaining) part of the game was to figure out how much my books would weigh. Time to weigh some books.
One foot of books - exactly.
Having assembled exactly one linear unit of our heaviest books, it was time for the weigh-in. Any guesses?
We weigh the cat using exactly the same technique.
The answer was 24 pounds. Now, we can figure out how much the books will weigh from the shelf length!
Ooh, nice illustration of the books.
But, how much will the shelf holders hold?
There's two schools of thought.
Home Depot claims one of my uprights will hold 275 lbs each. Awesome! We're done. Uh, but some other website claims they hold 50 lbs/ft. Per foot? What even is that? They're a quarter inch wide. Should I assume one upright can hold 1.04 lbs??? What is "properly installed"? If I put in enough uprights, I think they could hold 1000 lbs/ft. Bleh. I'll use Home Depot's numbers.
Which leaves us with...yeah, 3 uprights will work just fine for a six or an eight foot shelf. Heh. Well. Okay. Time to get started.
Meanwhile, Daisy experimented with a mid-chest pillow flop.
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