Boxes for storing canning jars

[saysfaa]

A torsion box might be a good solution other than quite tedious to make. And I forgot about that option before I went shopping today yesterday thevother day for a piece of plywood. I had the store make the cuts so I can't return it.

I found 1/2" plywood in 4 ply for what I thought was only a dollar or so more than the 3/8" in 3 ply at the other store. I misread the labeling, evidently. It is $5 more. At least I checked the price before they cut it. I bought it anyway.

1/2" instead of the 3/8" dh had in mind will handle a 1/3 more weight. Four ply is significantly stronger than 3 ply but I haven't found by how much.

I cut notches so the back of the plywood will fit between the studs. It went well enough that I might try a mortise and tenon joint where the back support intersects with the side support. Better equipment would make that easier but I saw on the internet that it is doable with hand saw and chisel. It must be so, then .

 

[saysfaa]

So far... I took the pictures while sitting on the floor in front of it. The first picture (the bottom shelf) has the back beam in the place. The second picture (the top shelf) has the cut out for the back beam but doesn't have the beam in place. In the second picture, the plywood is the shelf; you can see the osb of the floor above confusing things somewhat.

The bottom shelf can lay flat on the front-to-back beams. It currently is propped up in one front corner on top of one of the dowels I'm thinking of using for slide in supports. After I attached all the beams for that shelf, I realized if I raise it a bit then I won't have to cut the dowels. I have enough margin to raise it that much without messing up the rest of shelf spacing plan. It will be 2' to the bottom of the plywood instead of to the top of the plywood.

I'm planning to cut dowels for the other spaces between shelves - none of the spaces come close to being tall enough to use uncut dowels. Since I have to cut them anyway, I'll cut them short enough to fit under a 1 by something laid flat and attached to the underside of the shelve above. It will spread out the load and there is not much reason not to. It will not take much time and we want the wood scraps out of the garage.

I don't know whether to raise the bottom shelf a bit more and have a section of 1 by something under the bottom shelf also. I know it will add strength, I don't know if matters. It is probably overkill but we do overkill and consistency is nice, even when it won't been seen unless someone sits on the floor. What do you recommend?

 

[saysfaa]

Oh, I'm going to play with mortise and tenon some other time - the plain notch made more sense here.

And, yes, the horizontal beam comes forward at an angle acute enough to slide a big dowel between it and the front post. This is because I didn't think to check that the stud in the back was not twisted. It was not as twisted at the level of the top shelf; we (well, I) thought it was our 1x4 that was bent. That is why we had clamps on both ends of the front-to-back beam for a few days after we screwed it to the stud in back and post in front.

I don't know how to fix compensate for that yet. Any ideas? Nevermind. I should have remembered geometry or astrology classes. All it took was attaching the other end first. The angle being off for less than 3 inches meant a tiny divergence instead of an inch or more.

 

[saysfaa]

Yesterday, I found 15/32 plywood in the purple pile (70% off pile) with a damaged corner that fit into the scrap left after I had all the shelves I could fit anyway. Yes, I have scrap now because we made the shelves deeper than planned. They are 23" deep because that is where the floor joists came to and it made a nice proportion of shelf to walkway. The space is 9' feet wide, so we have 5' on one side of the "center" beam and 4' on the other side.

I have all four shelves on the 5' wide side of the "center" post installed. The 4-ply at top and bottom; the 3-ply for the two middle shelves. The 1/2" thick 4-ply is very noticeably stronger than the 15/32" thick 3-ply.

Sigh. Dh is right. My plan doesn't work for the spans we ended up with, the available materials, and expected loads. Barely any load makes it bow without the dowels in place. The dowels could possibly work as attached posts or such but just slid in between the bouncy shelves, they fall over too much. I'm not going to try to cobble up reinforcement like I would if it were close to working.

I still don't like giving up vertical clearance to horizontal beams. Or chopping up the space.

I have enough 1x2's to make torsion boxes. That is a lot of time (maybe not so much from other sources). I also didn't realize it requires a LOT of gluing. Nevermind, the first several sources I found seemed to indicate the glue is necessary. This source gets into the principals much more than the first sources I found that were more about how to build a given project. It says, "The method of attachment is immaterial (pun intended) to the strength of the assembly, as long as it is a stable connection."

The project is coming along, more or less.

 

[saysfaa]

I made one torsion box. I need much, much, much better craftsmanship but it is close enough that I learned a lot. And close enough that I could set empty jar boxes to see how the spacing works and where I can borrow from if needed.

It is not glued, nailed, or screwed - it is just dry fitted. I cut a notch halfway through each 1x2 wherever it intersected with another 1x2. Half on top, half on the bottom. The back sides of the short pieces reach the back of the studs behind the shelves. They are planned to be screwed to the studs.

I build most of it in place because I can't get the shelves out without taking the crosspieces of the next higher shelf out. (that is one of the reasons for the sloppiness). I don't want to go to all that work very many times.

I made some glaring mistakes (like measuring the wrong way from the mark so some notches are twice as wide as they should be). And some smaller issues are due to the reject-pile-nature of the wood. The warps of all kinds cause problems in measuring well and in the performance of the finished thing.

I also don't know how much it will hold. I might need more interior pieces.

I think I can do the concept well enough and in a reasonable timeframe. I am not happy with the 1x2s. They are more flexible than I want as well as the warps set into them.

https://www.bayareawoodworkers.org/Teck_Talks/TeckTalkTorsion Box Construction.html
Says beam stiffness in a torsion box is proportional to the cube of its thickness. So, 25% thicker is 2 times stiffer. Twice as thick is 8 times stiffer.

Beam stiffness is provided by compression of inside surface and elongation of outside surface. The middle doesn't provide stiffness. It only connects and separates the outside surfaces.

View attachment 3671325

Hah! It specifies "shelves with a long span between supports" among the good things to make with this technique.

Sorry for the disorganization of this post. We've also been raking leaves, putting the garden to bed for the winter, and such... it is the last week to all this without high risk of trying to do it in the snow. I'm too tired to do better.

Anyway, my current plan is to get one more sheet of 1/2" 4-ply plywood. Then set that up in the garage so it is flat. Then I can measure more accurately, cut better, and so on.

The bay area woodworkers website says how to get it flat via several options - including this crossed strings method:

Run strings from corner to corner so that they form a big X on the subassembly. Place equal-height spacers under the strings at each corner so that they don't touch the grid. In addition, for the string that crosses over the other, add shims at the corners which are exactly the thickness of the string. Tension the strings to remove sag. When the assembly is flat, the strings will just kiss at the crossing point. I use monofilament line for my string. This technique is very sensitive. On a box which is 24"x75", I can see the effect of putting just one business card under one corner of the box.

I don't need it that flat/level but I like that the low tech method works so well.

 

[saysfaa]

Today, I looked at the shelf mess and thought of three conflicting ways to proceed. So I mowed the grass and leaves of the lawn and turned them into the compost pile. That took all day - lots of very big trees dropping leaves.

Then came in and looked up "torsion box calculations" and copied a bunch of math and advice until I found this:

"...There's nothing particularly magical about a torsion box structure. ...The analysis is fairly straightforward although rather tedius to do with a handheld calculator. It's simply a closed section; usually hollow for weight reduction with internal stiffeners to resist skin buckling under load. A solid member with the same external dimensions will be slightly stiffer and stronger in both torsion and bending as well as being much heavier...." which is what my gut feeling has been saying since I started looking in enough detail to actually build some.

Using a torsion box does not give me more vertical space in my shelves or (I think) any longer span for a set of dimensions. It just makes the shelf itself lighter in weight. And allows me to use smaller pieces of wood (the shelf version of a stick built house vs a log cabin). Using smaller pieces for this project has some value for me over using the bigger pieces but not terribly much. Weight doesn't matter much to me for this.

 

[Just Ranchin]

When I double stack jars I set a ring on each jar so it's sitting on top but not screwed on more than enough to get it to grip. This way there is no pressure on the lid and no false seal issues. Then I can stack jars on top with a piece of cardboard in between to even out the weight on top.

 

[saysfaa]

I'll make a concise summary in a later post so this post can be skipped.

It is dark o'clock Thursday morning and I gave up trying to sleep. My mind is spinning with "have to do this before I do that, opps doing this makes the other thing a problem." Apologies for cluttering up the site if I end up posting it. Just writing it out has stopped the spinning. I think. I hope.

This is not that hard. Except, it is. Sigh.

I'm done dinking around -helped by not finding suitable bed rails yesterday (too reinforce the too-long span) and by finding 9 prime 2x4x10 in the purple bin yesterday. All very straight in every dimension. I had 1' cut off the end of each of 8 of them, the 9th cut into 8" sections.

I don't know how much danger there is of introducing nasty mold to the basement so I'm spending two days sanding the mold off them. Washing them with dawn dish soap and a brush (per the internet) isn't very practical given the current temperatures outside. It does work fairly well, though - I tried it with the 8" sections. Some sections needed further help - I left vinegar to soak on those (also per the internet). Possibly, the sanding cost more in sanding discs than the savings from the discount. Certainly, it does if I count my time. It took about 10 hours with a handheld orbital sander and 60 grit sandpaper.

In between sessions of sanding, I undid everything except the end posts.

New plan is two end posts and two middle posts - as evenly spaced as the stud placement allows. It still chops my lengthwise space up somewhat but less than when we tried to add middle posts around the already placed middle post. Also, the middle posts will be faced the same way as the end posts- which means a spacer for each middle post if we do front-to-back supports on each side of each middle post. One front-to-back support per middle post is probably enough, I'm still working on what to use for those pieces. Each a 1 x something. Each a 2x4.
Need 16.

Then one 1x2 and two 2x4s per shelf. The 1x2 laid shortest side up and the 2x4s laid 4" side up. All on top of the front-to-back supports at each post (no half lapping anything). The 1x2 attached to each stud of the back wall; one 2x4 attached to the front posts; one 2x4 half way between the other two pieces.

Then the plywood.

Then a second front-to-back support attached to the studs and posts on top of the plywood on the ends. That will help keep the 2x4s from sagging (ends can't go up so middle can't go down). It will also keep the jars from falling off the ends.

Each lengthwise support plus plywood takes 2" (or almost 2" for the 15/32 plywood) of vertical space. The simpler math should help me get everything straight and even, math challenged as I am.

The 8" long sections of 2x4 are to hold up the support pieces while I get things level - various combinations of lengths, widths, and depths with other scraps I have should work for all the shelf spacings I am doing. Then the 8" pieces might hold up a fifth shelf to make two shelves spaced for pints (dividing the 16" spacing). If that works well, I might get pieces for a sixth shelf to make two shelves spaced for quarts (dividing the 20" spacing.)

Still to figure out

• exactly how long to make the front-to-back support pieces - 23 1/2 inches (match the plywood). 23"
• whether to incorporate short vertical sections (like the 8" sections) for each shelf spacing - no, maybe add later. Yes, using scraps. No, maybe later.
• whether to take down the end posts - yes, sand them then put them back up with a bit of insulation under them.
• whether to paint before I put everything together - yes, except the top of the plywood because I don't want to wait for the paint to cure enough to not risk sticking to boxes I set on the shelves - internet says 30 days for latex paint.

Update Thursday evening
Sanding done.
Painting of posts and long beams done.

Scraps of short vertical sections
22" for the 24" floor to first shelf (5 gal pails)
10" for the 12" first to second shelf (juice)
18" (or two 8") for the 20" second to third shelf (quarts)
14" (or two 6") for the 16" third to top shelf (pints and half pints)

Build sequence
Measure on each post and mark:
18 1/2" up - the bottom of the 1x4 brace
22" up - the bottom of the 2x4 beam
24" up - top of first shelf

30 1/2 up - bottom of the 1x4 brace
34 up - bottom of 2x4 beam
36" up - top of second shelf

50 1/2 up - bottom of 1x4 brace
54" up - bottom of 2x4 beam
56" up - top of third shelf

66 1/2 - bottom of 1x4 brace
70" up - bottom of 2x4 beam
72" up - top of fourth shelf

Saturday wee hours of the morning
I did the math wrong.
marking the posts while they were still laying flat helped find that error.
I think it is correct now but I don't have the numbers here.

The front to back braces are 2x4 (that I already had). I didn't like using them because they are too much overkill and because it irritates me to see them used so much in online sources. But, I don't have enough 1 x anythings without using the ones I cut notches in. Seeing the notches would irritate me more than seeing the 2x4s.

The braces are cut and painted. Second coat of paint is on the primed posts.

I'm waiting for paint to dry.

One paint can had good paint in it. Two had solidified gunk. Two had rust under the rims and very, very, very thick "paint" but were savable enough for this project.

Edit to fix typo

 

[saysfaa]

This is not the concise summary.

I thought if I just paid enough attention, numbers would behave. They don't. This is different than forgetting a measurement. Or transposing a number. Or being sloppy. Although I do all that too. Measuring twice, cutting once doesn't help. Much anyway. Measuring many times sometimes helps. Only sometimes. Measuring many times helps more often if I measure different things that intersect near the part I'm trying to do.

So, I'm still not done. I have the bottom shelf almost done. Some of the plywood still needs the cutouts to fit between the studs and to inset the posts. Some of it is done and fits well.

I also left the middle posts off. The braces are supported by scrap pieces of 2x4 until the plywood is done so it is easier to take the plywood in and out. If I could measure twice and cut once and I could be sure how high the posts need to be, I would have put the middle posts in already.

What is done is square in all directions, level in all directions, and in the right place - I'm nearly sure. Except the one end post that is off by a quarter of an inch (or maybe some other distance an inch or less). It is short from the stud wall to the post. I eventually figured out that is mostly because the floor joist is not straight. I would have fixed it with a block between the post and the floor joist if I had started with the other end. As it is, I would have to notch the post to fix it. Having tried to notch thin/narrow things with a skill saw, hand saw, drill, chisel, and sandpaper as available tools - I'm not going to try it.

If I could have just moved the other end, I might have. But all the other measurements are based on that end - plywood cut for it and so on. I measured both ends but not accurately enough (or the numbers jumped).

It is also off partly because the post is twisted a little. I have the post blocked at the top (2x4 wedged in between the post and the stud wall) so I can torque on the bottom without putting the strain on the screw. Then I decided not to wait for it to move. When everything else is done, I will think about working on that. I think I can put temporary blocks between the shelves, unscrew the braces, torque on it until it moves, then screw the braces back onto the post. It probably won't seem worth it.

One design change - the 1x2s are 8' long. The shelf is 9' long. The timber framing has a choice of techniques to splice a beam. I don't think my tools are fine enough to try it with such a small piece of wood. And I have extra 1x2s so I doubled up the 1x2s along the back. They are offset so each is attached to one end and the studs lining up with each of the middle posts (and all the other studs they reach). Scraps fill in the gaps on the ends.

I know it is possible to make a functional set of shelves without putting 100 hours into it - even if the numbers jump. I don't always like living with me. At least next time, if there ever is a next time, I won't have to figure out how to do so many things.

 

[saysfaa]

It fits!!!!! On the first try!!!!!!
The second piece of plywood!!! (Grain front to back; the first piece has grain side to side).

And the brace for the second shelf is level by just setting it there (on top of temporary spacers)!!!

Snoopy Dance!!!!!!!!!

This is why I spent all that blood, sweat, and tears on the foundation.