Floating Live Edge Shelf

So I spotted this piece of Ash, for $10 a while back and decided it would make a nice little shelf for our bedroom. The build was pretty straight forward, the most interesting part was coming up with a way to attach it to the wall without the typical mounting brackets, as I was really after the "floating" style.

If you get a chance, please watch the 3 minute video above, as it includes a few extra details, and--well, it would make me happy!

Here are the tools I used for the project:

Veritas #4 smoothing plane - www.leevalley.com

Lincoln Electric 140C Mig welder - http://amzn.to/2fhWbGd

Dewalt 4 1/2 Angle Grinder - http://amzn.to/2ejTkbd

Porter cable forstner drill bit set: http://amzn.to/2fafkFV

Boiled Linseed Oil - http://amzn.to/2gnzRc0

Briwax Steel Wool Grade 0000 - http://amzn.to/2ja1FAR

Briwax (Clear) Furniture Wax Polish - http://amzn.to/2ja2aL9

So this is the piece exactly as I received it. As mentioned previously this happened to be a piece of Ash, which is one of my favorite species to work with. I find Ash to be similar to oak, but easier to work with and with more aesthetic figuring.

So the next step was to flatten the top of the slab, fortunately I didn't have to take off all that much. For this I used my Veritas #4 Smoothing plane, which made quick work of the job.

Note: Securing smaller slabs like this for planing can be a bit tricky, having a proper bench makes this sort of thing much easier.

I decided the best way to hide the mounting system would be to have the mount actually sit inside the shelf. Here I am welding some sections of 1/2" steel pipe to a strip of 1" steel flat stock. The flat stock will mount to the wall and the slab will slide onto the pipe. I used a Lincoln Electric 140C Mig welder to join the pipe to the flat stock.

With the mounting bracket fabricated, the next step was to mark out where to drill the holes in the slab for the pipe to slide into.

Although the entire build itself was pretty straight forward, drilling the slab was a little tricky. Being as that the slab doesn't have a square face to register right angles, I had to break out some shims and a level to assure that my holes would be perfectly perpendicular to the mounting side.

And to make it even trickier, there was only about 1/8" clearance on either side of the hole, so if the angle was off it would have popped through the top or bottom of the slab.

I used a Porter cable drill press and Porter cable forstner drill bit set to drill the holes.

The next step was to drill and tap through the bottom of the slab into one of the steel pipes of the mounting bracket, this screw will prevent the shelf from being pulled off the mounting bracket when installed.

I feel like 90% of my finishes start with an application of Boiled Linseed Oil. BLO has an amazing ability to increase the contrast in a piece of wood, it is known for it's ability to make the figuring of a board "pop".

Since this shelf won't see much wear and tear, I decided a coat of clear clear Briwax Wax Polish applied with Briwax 0000 steel wool would provide adequate protection as well, with the steel wool bringing the wax down to a semi-gloss sheen.

Wax finishes are very simple to apply and can offer significant protection for pieces that aren't subject to significant handling.

This part was super simple! Screw the mount to the wall, slide the slab on the mount and secure the slab to the mount with a single screw in the bottom.

Happy wife=Happy life!

This was a fun and simple build that only took a few hours and lends itself nicely to the pre-existing crap on our wall :)

Thank you for checking out this Instructable! If you'd like to see more projects from me, make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel ZH Fabrications and check out my website www.zhfabrications.com .

And again, here are the tools I used for this project:

Veritas #4 smoothing plane - www.leevalley.com

Lincoln Electric 140C Mig welder - http://amzn.to/2fhWbGd

Dewalt 4 1/2 Angle Grinder - http://amzn.to/2ejTkbd

Porter cable forstner drill bit set: http://amzn.to/2ejTkbd

Boiled Linseed Oil - http://amzn.to/2ejTkbd

Briwax Steel Wool Grade 0000 - http://amzn.to/2ja1FAR

Briwax (Clear) Furniture Wax Polish - http://amzn.to/2ja1FAR