How To Build Floating Shelves -3min Vs 3Hrs Vs 3 Days

when I first got started in woodworking the most requested projects from my wife have been floating shelves well today we're going to do a challenge 3 minute 3 hour versus 3-day build for floating Shell let's get started so to make it nice and fair we're going to start a timer on Arena's phone nothing's been set up except I got some supplies with me do I need to go go go okay go go go so I got a piece of popper from the local hardware store this was already a small piece all right that's nice the sharp edges we need to get rid of that so we're just going to round them over I got a sticker here now we need to seal this to protect it something's flying okay I got Danish oil need a rag so the nice thing with Danish oil I got it tinted so it's not going to turn any kind of amber color mounting is going to take the most time so this part has to be fast go smooth can't forget the end all right so hard work to mount this Amazon I found out there these have these brackets should have had it open already I should have had it but I don't want to cheat I I don't want to get it all prepared all right we got Hardware here so this mounts like that okay uh I got to get this on to the wall we're going to throw it up here all right drill we're going to wait on the anchors here we go here we go throw the first one on it's not going to hold anything cuz we didn't hit stud oh shoot am I upside down crap that's not how they get mounted well we're doing the SL I hate Filip screws all right that's not a stud at all I need a level screws how we doing on time one minute I got one minute left come on on okay you have 10 seconds left 10 seconds hold on okay 10 seconds one last screw okay time what we oh 4 seconds that is a 3 minute floating shell 10 out of 10 I like it a lot to be honest with you it's simple it's easy the hardware is only like 30 bucks on Amazon um but what do you think do you like the color do you like the bracketing I do like the color it's a nice color I would use it get a piece of poppler get these $30 Amazon brackets you can bust these out in 3 minutes booya 3 minutes I can't tell you how happy I am right now that this 3 minute one is done cuz with a 3H hour I can actually catch my breath you do sound like you just ran a marathon I feel like I ran a marathon I really do feel like it this is ridiculous why am I doing this I don't know 3-hour floating shelf let's get started so for the 3-hour floating shelf we're going to go classy I picked up from Woodcraft a piece of popler that's 124 and that means it's really thick it is 2 and 3/4 thick what we need to do it's overall pretty flat I think they they pled it but they didn't throw it on the jointer so I got my brand new jointer here I actually never put a piece of wood to it after I assembled hopefully it comes out good so the first order of business I got a flat this thing on the edges and I could trim them [Music] [Applause] [Music] off okay so we got one side jointed I need to figure out the overall length so this is the hardware that I found on Amazon for this super sturdy super thick gauge steel and the idea is that you board the holes and you slide the in but there's quite a bit of prep work that still needs to happen I mean overall this thing is uh 10 in I think that should be fine so what we'll need to do is chop this thing off so 9 in call it that right there what is that that is 35 in let's chop it up and let's throw it on the table saw it on the table side we need 9 in ah it won't reach I got to take the ring knife off come on all right that's off we need more blade out of this thing it's a good thing you have 3 hours good thing I have 3 hours that's the only thing that's saving me right now I still feel this crazy pressure I know you're still running [Music] around we got our first set back here it had the wrong blade on here it wasn't given enough power to cut through that which kind of sucks but I think we got plenty of time to still stay on track here all right I think we're back in [Music] business there we go that's how that's supposed to cut now what we're going to do is put a radius around this thing make sure it has nice and smooth sides I want to do a better job than just the sander so we're going to put our little roundover bit on it [Music] now we hit it with 120 and then 220 we've only been working for 15 minutes we're going to do well with this one but we still got a long way to go woo that is smoother than a baby's bottom so we need to start boring these holes in here in order to slide that in but you need a jig conveniently when we bought this set again on Amazon on they gave me for free a little boring guide so what this should do is create the right diameter for it to slide in and it's spaced out accordingly what we're going to do here is we're going to have to line the sucker up where we want our holes and then from there we'll set our jig screwed in place and then bore it out 3/4 on this side okay that should be good you're so hot when you're precise does this turn you on yeah yeah you should come out work with me more often it's nice to have a female around here gets lonely okay that looks pretty dang straight gu we're fine I'm going to trace this out since I'm here cuz we're going to have to get that sucker recessed in so you don't see the backing when slid on I found this uh little square at that abandoned house that we did so that's one of the guys' old tools that doesn't work as Square well they call it a square because this creates a perfect square perfect 90° angle so what I want to do now is I want to round over these holes it'll make it a lot easier to slide in besides I think the drill bit is exactly the width of these so it's going to be a really snug bit do you like a snug wait I'm talking about woodworking here yeah okay okay we're on the same page do a test fit here just to make sure oh that's perfectly aligned we are going to well there's a couple of things we could either bang this thing in or try to take the bit and loosen it up more so there's a little bit more free play in there you know I think the first thing you ever built me was a floating shelf was it did it last or did a break we don't know we don't know we're not at the house anymore no so that looks already good we're just going to pound that in a little bit we don't want this thing to be too loose because then the shelf's going to start kind of tilting down so nice and toy is what we're looking for next order of business we need to recess this section so that you won't see this bracket when it goes all the way through the wall and besides these are all going to have screws on them you can with us company buy a jig that's also metal I didn't want to spend the money on it it was pretty pricey so I thought we can just make our own jig I'm going to take a scrap piece of MDF and I'm going to cut a couple of strips out and what I'm essentially going to do is recess this inside of it and we're going to use our route a bit with a wheel on it and uh guide it all the way around so we can bore that down to the appropriate depth so what I'm going to do now is I'm going to put this on my pocket hole machine and secure this with wood glue and pocket hole screws that way it could hold and be strong enough for me to use and not wait for the glue to dry all the way [Music] ah the MDF is splitting right over here it's such a small little piece and the pocket holes are so close to the edges hopefully the wood glue sets in quicker and we can get on with our day how we doing on time still like two hours I still have two hours to go well we're still not there yet maybe you should have done 1 minute versus 1 hour versus one day but I have the the next one it's I there's no way I could do it in one day it's just unless I don't go to bed so I'm going to need to counter sync these holes cuz we're going to put screws in them and we don't want those screws to pop out cuz they're going to interfere with our router okay so let's line this up where we need it to be the nice thing here is I gave myself enough wiggle room in case I'm a little too short on it but we should be good you know what I need for this shop I need one of those tables those working tables that have a Vie on the side of it can I buy one is your birthday coming up no not for while but no this might be a dumb question are you hanging this whole thing the MDF yeah oh sweet sweetheart you're so cute right now a jig is something that you create temporarily you can reuse later to have more of a guided cut what we're going to do is well I already knew that I was just asking cuz I know somebody else is going to ask somebody else was going to ask you're right so this wheel is going to track around this space that I created to create a perfect even cut we start boring all of this [Music] out stuff out [Music] and that is what a jig is for you see now I could save this and reuse this for future floating shelves making the process a lot faster you sure oh look at that that's perfectly flush in there oh that's beautiful I really want to test this out pushing this all the way in but there's no getting it out so we're going to have to wait on that here's what I need to do next I'm going to give this one final 220 finished sand just because I've been kind of throwing this around and there's dust on it and then we're going to stain this by the way one little hack I found that's working so far is most of the Times Arena has a problem when wood gets stained it turns Amber True or False very true so when you use an oil base it will turn it Amber and because there is petroleum in this it will turn it Amber but if you have it lightly tinted with light Walnut which has more of a darker brown kind of tones to it the wood doesn't yellow as much now it also depends on the species I personally love working with popler because I feel like you can have more predictable colors I think you should keep keep that shelf up there forever you think I'm probably going to hang this one here and I'm probably going to keep it there 1 hour and 17 left well it's good because I'm going to let this actually cure for at least 30 minutes uh I don't want to be a knucklehead and throw a shelf up just seconds after putting stain on like this one yes don't recommend doing that you're going to get your hands dirty you're going to mess with the stain you're going to get the wall probably dirty or greased up unless you only have 3 minutes unless you only have 3 minutes all right this thing is perfectly dry to to touch you can do up to three layers of stuff but they said stop when you have achieved your color scheme and we did how we do it on time minutes all right perfect so let's get this thing mounted through the studs properly here uh I have a screw right here so I already know that's [Music] there I like how strong this thing is although I would love if there's another stud here somewhere this is my favorite shelving system because you have so many screws it's welded steel it's thick beautiful now the only thing this is where I might cry if this doesn't go in all the way moment of Tru hope for the best expect the worst [Music] did it do it yeah it did it oh that's so slick is it flush it is flush the most beautiful shelf I've ever built I've never been so happy about a damn floating shelf before but that is so clean wow we don't did it we don't did it I got to we did it together together 23 minutes left to spare wow that's coffee break time we're finally moving on to the 3-day floating shelf build I have some beautiful Walnut that I picked up it's roughs on so we're going to have to Mill it up to make sure our edges are straight our faces are nice and plain and we'll actually have nice clean wood to work with without these crazy splits and uh rough terrain let's throw it on the join [Music] Joiner done planers done table Saw's done we have nice beautiful Lumber that has nice tight seams we're going to throw it on some clams some wood glute let it dry overnight and then we can start cutting them into pieces though we want it to take shape of this glorious 3day floating [Music] shelf waste any time while the wood is drying just because tomorrow there's going to be a very important drying process that needs to happen and I won't have anything else to do so we're going to get started on our drawer we're going to have a nice beefy drawer 4 in tall uh 36 in wide and about 10 in deep cuz they don't have sliders that are less than 10 in I got those ordered going to start cutting this up ripping on my table saw and we'll go from [Music] there so I got my D Cuts put in place that's going to allow for a quinch plywood sit right inside to be the bottom of the drawer keeping this drawer nice and light I don't want to go too heavy on it going to throw some pockets ET holes on the back side to keep it together throw some wood glue on it and get this thing dried in for tomorrow ready to kick [Music] butt got a beautiful drawer done here nice and deep for whatever you throw at it I still got to Edge band it on top and seal it but we're going to let this dry overnight tomorrow we'll edgeband it and tomorrow we'll start the massive cut suckers are all nice and dried strong glue Bond all that's left now is to clean up all these glue marks make sure everything's nice and perfectly smooth and then we'll start trimming them to the way we need [Music] them I said this is boring this well I'm sorry I would juggle but I don't know how to well you should start everything is smooth as butter in fact this is the most impressive part that I always love what happens it matches the grain pattern so perfectly it still needs a few little bit more coats of sanding but man I love when that happens what we need to do next is because these are rough Dimensions we need to cut them down to our final Dimension ideally we can make our shelves as wide or as deep as we want but I definitely don't want to exceed 12 in so we might just air on the safe side do 11 in so I'm going to rip them all on my table saw to make sure we have have all the same dimensions we're working with this is the part that we really have to make sure we're intricate about we are going to create miter Cuts everybody knows what miter cuts are I don't tell me okay miter cuts are an angle 45 degre cut actually did know that we're going to cut them down so they could fold in um and then obviously we need to cut this in half so we have you know a 3ft shell for the top bottom but essentially half of this half of that angle 45s on each side and then glue them together but we need to Joint them and I'll show you how we're going to do that because these are only 11 in wide we theoretically throw it on the miter saw but I don't like doing those miters on them at the side because the blade can sometimes get deflected and really jack up that miter so I'm going to try to go with tracksaw method put it out 45° and hopefully that gets a cleaner more consistent cut that is right on the money so that is a method of choice one down sever more to go [Music] your timer's almost done for the three days no it's not it's still day two today's day two stop did I freak you out no I knew exactly the data stop rushing me we got everything laid out dry fit looks good the way we're going to join them we're going to use biscuit joiners these are great way to get into like a a beginner level of joinery stuff what's great about them is they not only align the wood but also on the end grain it adds a little bit of something extra for the glue to grab as opposed to just gluing it straight to that grain which it's not the strongest joint we're going to throw them all around ideally I'm going to put three get them all hopefully lined up perfectly and then we can start gluing all at once this is where the moment of truth comes together cuz um I didn't measure right this thing is going to be trash [Applause] [Music] [Applause] all right it's a cold day number three folks I got a lot of work to do today just because yesterday's glue up held me up not a whole lot I could do what we got to do today lots of sing on this I got to edgeband this drawer and then we got to start cutting our drawer face with this lots of dust collector let's get to work cuz this needs to be mounted today this girl is being too much right now I'm wearing gloves to fil them in a hat rate your fit what do you guys think oh you're wearing some heavy duty boots too look at you go you know it's only like 30° outside and which means it's like probably 40 in here and I'm still cold my hands are still so cold the shop is not for the faint of heart it is [Music] not edgeband veneer nice stuff I like the fact that you can iron it on got to wait for my mean tiny little iron to warm up we'll start ironing it on cutting off the edges sanding it so it's not abrasive on the side and this drawer will be ready for [Music] installation beautiful clean little box here got our drawer face now one thing we need to do is mounting couple methods we could either put a solid piece of Walnut here and secure it with the drill from the back personally I think it's a waste of Walnut but also I think there's a better option in the sense that you could take it on and take it off if you choose to do so the method I'm going to do is called the French cleat system and what it is is uh two pieces of wood in here split 45° angle one gets mounted to the wall and the other 45° angle gets mounted to this sucker so you can come on and just slide it down you just need to have enough room to get it over that initial home we're going to try to cut a piece down and MIT that Su [Music] cor the important part here is you got to make it flush with the back part so you don't see it and make sure it doesn't get out of alignment cuz then it'll look a little janky I'm bleeding all over this place look at that where are you bleeding from from this right here I had a blister there popped and it's still leaking up you're ruining the Walnut I'll sand it off and it's going in our house maybe has extra sentimental value maybe people feel like could bid on this thing see if they want a little bit of Mr buildy blood so the way this will work is this is the other side of the French cleat system it will mount on the wall like this facing Inward and you simply just lift this up and this sits holding it up in place this is an incredibly incredibly strong mounting method I've done it with cabinets that held a lot of weight on them and has never failed me now while this is setting we still need to install our drawer but I want to put our tongue oil whatever we're using what did we use last time Danish oil we're going to put probably three coats of Danish oil because I love Walnut and I like it when it's really dark we're going to get this all wal nuted up and then when everything's nice and clean we'll be able to install our drawers and I have a cool little push mechanism that hopefully will work here but part of me is kind of doubting I don't think [Music] everything is nice and dry got my stain on got my slides for this I also end up only using one coat of the sealer just cuz I didn't want it to get more dark and almost started turning more reddish which I wanted to avoid the Cherry look 10in drawer slides get them in place use a little center punch also I was going to use a little push button to press the drawer to open it up but but there is just not enough I don't have an angled drill bit to get inside there which is a bummer but that sucks I bought two of them but who cares let's throw these drawer slides on and get the sucker [Music] mounted okay that's on now we got to get our drawer face all ready for us on balanced [Music] and there you have it folks 3 minute thre hour 3-day floating shelf build I think we knocked it out of the park if you like one of these approaches let me know I'd love to hear what you guys think about it if 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