brianu wrote:this is great. thank you for the replies and photos.
I'll post some of my own once I finally get more things organized.
I'm curious though whether there'd be any concerned over the use of wall-mounted shelves... a couple of the photos show one with several external horn machines on it... I'd be fearful over that sort of weight, no?
Brian -
I had the same concern, but it was more about the value of what was up there and not the weight. If you look at the picture of my shelf built out of ¾" thick red oak boards and it is actually built as a box. This does two things. You get the strength of a beam and you have the ability to slide it over a mounting feature. The mounting feature I used was a piece of maple 2" x 3" in cross section that fit snugly into the shelf opening and the length of the inside of the shelf opening. I anchored this into every stud over the length of the shelf making sure to start and stop on a stud. This allowed me to slide the shelf over the mounting feature and anchor it down through the top of the shelf and into the mounting feature. This is a similar principal that is used for the floating shelves that some decorators use. The scrolled brackets I made to give it some character and to keep the shelf from rotating down.
Overall this is probably one of the most over built shelves you will ever see, I could actually hang my 190 lb body from it without it yielding. However consider the value of the phonograph on the shelf and under the shelf, I had no issue justifying the effort. If you need additional information or help with the concept, feel free to ask.
Mark