DIY Locker Shelf

Do you need a locker shelf, but can’t stomach paying $15 for a flimsy shelf?  Well it’s back to school time here and my daughter needed a locker shelf, so I did what any Tim Taylor type would do and build one myself.
As I stated in my About – This Blog page, I would have some posts that were non-beer related.  Well this is one of them.
I made one last year for my daughter and it screwed together once inside the locker.  I had assumed that they would take them out of their lockers on the last day of school, but they surprised me and did it the day before and I felt like a jerk, because the teacher didn’t have a screwdriver to take the thing apart.  This year, I decided to go with a design that was tool-less.

Difficulty: level_2

If you are even a novice woodworker, this should be a piece of cake.  Actual work time was probably about 15 minutes.  Gathering materials and your tools will add whatever time it generally takes you.

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Supplies Needed:

  • 48″ section of shelving
    • 11″ to 12″ is a typical depth
    • I used a melamine board, because I had it on hand, but any shelving material should do
  • Scrap strip of wood for some supports
    • Again, I had a piece that was 3/4″ x 3/4″, but I’ll let you decide
    • something on the order of 40″-44″ should be close enough
  • Wood or drywall screws
    • They need to be shorter than the stackup of your shelf and wood strip (you’ll see later what I mean)

Tools Needed:

  • Drill
    • I’ve got a Makita drill and driver kit that is used in 95% of any of my projects.  If you don’t have a set, you need to.  Bosch, Makita and DeWalt all make good stuff.  A drill is, well, a drill.  But I love the impact drivers.  They make it effortless to run screws into anything.
  • Tape measure
  • Circular Saw
  • Clamps (for securing the wood to your work surface when cutting)

The Build:

Alright, lets get to it.  Measure twice, cut once.  Right??

You should have the interior dimensions of the locker in hand.  Many schools provide this information on their website.  Ours were 13-1/2″ wide, by 11″ deep.  I went just a bit under on width at 13-3/8″.  You don’t want too much free play however, because if there is too much movement, the shelf could collapse on itself.  You’ll know how sturdy it is when you install it in the locker.  The 11″ standard shelf depth worked out well, but I still had to trim a little off due to the frame of the door.

To help you visualize how this is going to go together, here is what each corner will look like.  You can see that the uprights support the weight of the shelf.  Then the stops that are screwed to the shelf basically prevent the uprights from leaning in.  The interior wall of the locker prevents the uprights from falling out.  Easy right?

locker shelf - shelf - how it works

Cut the top shelf piece to length.

locker shelf - Measurement - width

Then decide how tall you want it.  If you got a 48″ section, you should have enough wood to make something around 16″ tall at the most.  That should be sufficient for most books and notebooks.  Remember your total height will be the length of each upright, plus the thickness of the shelf.  And the underneath height will be the length of the uprights.

Now cut the uprights, just as you did for the top.

Next will be the strips that keep the uprights from moving.  These should be shorter than the depth of the shelf.  They will be fastened to the shelf top with screws.  You’ll need two strips per shelf.  I’m building two shelves here (one for each daughter needing one), hence a total of 4.

Mark out a line approximately 1″ from each end and then eyeballing the center should be good enough.

locker shelf - strips - marked for drilling

Pre-drill vs. Through Hole

You’ll want to drill “through holes” in the strips and “pre-drill” the shelf.

A through hole is just that, it allows the fastener to go through a material without actually gripping it and is larger than the major (or maximum) diameter of the fastener.

A pre-drill is used to reduce the risk of the wood splitting when you drive the screw in.  An appropriate pre-drill size for wood is right at the minor diameter or slightly under.  You can measure these dimensions if you have a pair of calipers, but I’m using my “eyechrometer” for these.

You can see below that the drill bit is slightly larger than the screw.  This is what I will use to drill the through holes in the wood support strips.

locker shelf - holes - predrill size

This next image shows selecting the pre-drill size for the shelf.  Notice that the drill diameter is approximately the same as the root diameter of the screw.

locker shelf - holes - through hole size

This next step is optional.  I used a counter-sink kit to allow the screws to sit flush with the top of the wood when fully secured.  Sometimes in harder woods, you’d end up splitting the wood if you ran the screws hard enough into the wood to make them flush.  They basically create a cone shape for the head of the fastener to sit in.

locker shelf - holes - countersink

See, nice pretty countersunk holes.

locker shelf - holes - countersinks completed

Now we need to pre-drill the shelf to attach the support strips.  You’ll need to measure the thickness of your upright.

locker shelf - measurement - shelf thickness

Then use that measurement to determine the spacing from the edge of the shelf to the location of the support strip.

locker shelf - measurement - stop offset

Mark a line so you know if anything moves when you are drilling the holes.

You’ll need screws that are shorter than the thickness of the shelf and the support strips.

locker shelf - holes - evaluating depth

You’ll also want to be careful to not drill all the way through the shelf.  Pointy screws poking out tend to rip books and cut hands!  I’ll sometimes use a short section of masking tape wrapped around the drill bit to mark the proper depth of the drill bit.

locker shelf - holes - drill depth marker

Now take your pre-drill size and use the holes in the support strips as a location guide.

locker shelf - holes - drilling

Once you have everything pre-drilled, it’s time to secure them to the shelf.  Nice and flush!

locker shelf - strips - attached and countersunk

locker shelf - top - with strips attached

Here is the completed shelf sitting up against the screwed together version 1 from last school year.

locker shelf - shelf - assembled and tested

Besides getting it to the locker, you’re DONE!

Getting it into the locker:

  • Set the uprights on the sides of the locker floor
  • Place the shelf on top, ensuring that the support strips fit in between the uprights

Not into brewing, but like to make stuff?  Check out these posts:

Making Belgian Candi Sugar
Rolling Deep Freezer Dolly

Are you curious about making your own beer and would like to learn more?   Try out a beginning brewing kit:

Choosing a Starting Brewing Kit

Refrigerator Conversion Part 5 – Shelf Building

The last major step in the build of the refrigerator conversion is to build the shelving inside the fridge to support your fermenters.
If you missed the first post, start here: Part 1: Introduction
That post has a run down of most of the materials, tools and supplies needed for this project.

Difficulty: level_4

This project requires a few inexpensive special tools, but will most likely take an entire weekend, lots of improvisation, some thorough cleaning and the cost of the fridge takes it to level 4.

Posts for this Project:

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Clean up
Part 3: Disassembly
Part 4: Door modification
Part 5: Shelf building (this post)
Part 6: Finishing up and other observations

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Goals:

You could choose to keep the standard shelf in the bottom, but why?

My goals for the fridge from the beginning were:

  1. Sturdy enough shelf on the bottom to support a full 1/2 barrel keg
  2. Bottom section should also be able to accommodate
    1. Corny kegs with all fittings and hoses attached
    2. Glass carboy with standard airlock
    3. 1/2 barrel keg with all fittings and hoses attached
    4. DIN (German) keg with all fittings and hoses attached
    5. Fit at least 4 standard size fermentation buckets
  3. Top Section to accommodate 3-4 standard fermentation buckets with 3 piece airlocks
  4. Future capability to partition upper and lower section to have two temperature zones.  The freezer section was to short as standard to accommodate them.

Building the Shelf:

As I stated, I wanted to maximize the space available.  The shelf that came with the fridge wouldn’t have been strong enough for goal 1.  It also was about 2 inches taller than the hump in the back of the fridge.  All refrigerators should have one.  On the other side are the compressor and some of the other guts.

To build the bottom shelf, I utilized the back of the hump as a support for the back of the shelf and build out the other support with 2×4’s.  You’ll of course need to customize for your fridge, but what I’ve done should give you some thought for your project.

really ready for disassembly

This is sort of in reverse, but here is the bottom shelf installed.  I had a fleeting thought of somehow keeping the bottom drawers for yeast and hop storage, but since I will always be fluctuating temperature, I didn’t really feel it was necessary.

bottom shelf installed

bottom shelf front

You’ll notice the legs have a small angle cut into them.  The bottom of the fridge had a 5 degree slope to it (presumably for drainage of spilled liquids).  The middle leg was for additional support in the middle of the shelf, and also to stop the shelf from sliding out.  It catches on a small hump in the bottom.

bottom shelf side view

I put 4 buckets inside to see how they fit.  WOW!  Just barely.  I knew it would be close.

shelf with 4 buckets

 

barely fits

So next, I cut another piece of FRP board to cover the bottom shelf.  I also created a wood frame for the top shelf.  I had a section of wire shelf that was just wide enough to span the width of the wood frame.  I didn’t feel however, that it was strong enough to support the weight of 3 full fermentation buckets.  I added another support to span the shelf.  I used wire shelf to allow sufficient airflow between the top and bottom of the cabinet.

fridge with various items inside

I also made the top of the shelf height just tall enough to clear the control panel inside the fridge.

top shelf wire mesh

Per goal 4, I went ahead and cut a piece of FRP panel to completely cover the top shelf.  I’ll modify this if and when I decide to work out temperature control for two different zones.

top shelf option

I don’t like the bare exposed wood, so I do plan to seal it with some paint or varnish.  I got this done just in time for me to brew the beer that will occupy the fridge for the next two months, so the painting will have to wait.

Up next…

Finishing up and other observations

Posts for this Project:

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Clean up
Part 3: Disassembly
Part 4: Door modification
Part 5: Shelf building (This post)
Part 6: Finishing up and other observations