Rough Cut Wood

Plane the wood down to the thickness that you will be using for your project, I planed my down to ¾"

cut off the rounded edges on a standard 2x4. as you can see from the pictures I was creating a basic brace piece where the long edge will be attached to the wall and then the floating shelf will slide over the brace piece during installation.

But I had a problem here, once I started looking at the actual size the shelf was going to be, I realized it was going to be about an ¾" thicker than I wanted on the wall, so back to the drawing board I went.

I changed the thickness of the entire project down ¾" taking the ¾" from the two side pieces and the front piece which sandwiched between the top and bottom boards.

my final board dimensions for the shelf turned out to be:

2 boards at 22" x 5 ½" x ¾"

2 boards at 3 ⅞" x ¾ x ¾"

1 board at 22" x ¾"x3/4"

Cut the following pieces:

5 pieces cut from 2x4 scrap at 4 ¾" x ¾"

1 Piece cut from 2x4 crap at 20 ½" x ¾" x ¾" (I cut the length 1/16" shorter just to allow a little room for error with the brace)

The next step is to evenly space the five shorter pieces along the longer piece. Then glue and clamp the pieces together keeping them flat on the table to make sure the brace is as level as possible.

I used a crosscut sled and a stop block to make sure that each piece was the same size for each part of the shelf.

Arrange all piece together, glue them together and secure them with as many clamps as you can.

After 20-30 minutes use your chisel to scrap off any squeeze out from the glue.

Start with your 60 grit paper and work your way to the 220 grit paper before moving on to the staining.

Apply your stain with a foam brush, wait about 3 minutes then using a rag wipe off the excess stain. After I applied one coat of stain, I used one coat of a wipe on poly.

measure to where you want to place your shelf, find a stud and make sure that at least one screw goes through the brace and into the stud. Level the brace, screw in 5 or 6 screws, then slide the shelf over the brace.

There you go! You have a new floating shelf installed!

If you like this instructable, check out my other projects that I have built on my page. You may also see some of my other builds on my website www.facebook.com/carpenterinthecity or on instagram at www.facebook.com/carpenterinthecity

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