More hungarian bookshelves

Hello everyone, here is my instructable on how to make hungarian bookshelves. I found the first instructable right here looking for an idea to fill up an empty space in my flat. It seemed it was just waiting for some shelves to be put there and I wanted to make them myself so that they would fill up all the space and cover the naked wall. After browsing the site a bit I thought hungarian bookshelves would look great and also seemed to be reasonably easy enough to make not to leave the flat upside down for too long a time. 
You can find the original post here : http://www.instructables.com/id/Hungarian-Shelves/
In this post I just want to share my experience in making them and show the slight differences I introduced.

Step 1: Prepare the job

The principle of these shelves consists in fixing sticks of wood to the wall in which you have made notches (or mortices). In these notches you will simply slide in the shelves and they will stay there without needing any extra fixing. I find the idea very simple and elegant and this is usually a sign of a good design.

For your own project, take accurate dimensions and use sketches to find out approximately how much material you will need to buy. I actually made a basic CAD model so I could figure out better how it would look, and this helped me later for dimensions and to estimate the amount of paint I would need.
Don't underestimate this step and plan your work carefully if you want something nice at the end. I went to the shops to find out what dimensions of wood were available and at what price before I made my decision on the final design.

Comments

[newtoDIY]

@rimar2000
I do have a young boy who will likely "perch"..... is there something I should change or pay more attention to? are you referring to the "sagulator" link?
Thanks :)

[CraigLubbe]

Hi Karteks, thank you for your post. I saw the original Hungarian Shelving post and then saw yours.

I really like your idea of inserting the screws in the inset of the support beams.
I adapted your plans to suit my needs and used the following:

4x 1700mm x 100mm x 45mm (for support beams)
4x 1500mm x 300mm x 20mm (for shelving)

I used solid European Beechwood with 8mm x 100mm screws with plugs.

I am really happy with the results. The shelving is really steady and I have a really heavy load on them with no bowing. Thanks for your instructable!

[Dillard421]

Make sure your joint cuts are perfect. If they are not, you will need shims as dictated in step 5 of the original ible. 

"BUT THERE IS STILL ONE MORE THING...

PLEASE DO NOT MISS THIS DETAIL WHETHER YOU THINK IS IMPORTANT OR NOT!

The last thing to do is to insert wedges of wood under all the shelves and in every stick untill all the shelves are ortogonal (=perpendicular) (=90 degres) to the sticks."

--http://www.instructables.com/id/Hungarian-Shelves/step5/Finishing/

This is what the author said about the joints in the comments:

"Rlangg says:
Is this slit, where the wedge (or shim) is to be hammered, a deliberate space (as suggested by hand drwn picture) or is it a space that will naturally be there because a cut can't be perfect? Must the wedge go all the way in? Must the hypotenuse of the wedge face down?"

"uliofo (author) says:
Hi Rlangg, The draw is an exaggeration that tries to represent the space that will naturally be there in non-perfect cuts. But there is a former comment about the tolerances you can get being careful in the cut and is very impressive; if you count with very good tools and experience you can mount selves on the cut sticks without wedges. The ideal would be not to need wedges but in my experience this happens "naturaly" one among 50 cuts or so. (But when happens you can feel the happiness of perfection). Forget about hypotenuses and put the edges as profound as you can. But try the avoid mortices larger in the interior (close to wall) than in the exterior (open space) because in this cases even wedges cannot fix the self properly to the sticks."

 

[karteks]

Hi

thanks for pointing this out. It is a critical step for the shelves to look right.
However all of my shelves are perpendicular and have no wedges. I can assure you I have nothing like precise tools or much experience :)

I think I just did things a little differently than the original post and prefered to make cuts in the sticks "just to size". That way when i put the shelves up, because of imperfections building up, the shelves would not fit in perfectly and I would use a file to get the cuts just right to insert the shelf straight. Honestly, this works. It just takes a little more patience to do all the filing but i think it's worth the effort for the look of it.

[rimar2000]

Interesting. But to me it seems a little weak, as if it don't could withstand some books without twisting

[jdege]

If you're building shelves, and are worrying about how much they might sag, consult The Sagulator: http://www.woodbin.com/calcs/sagulator.htm

[rimar2000]

Thanks for the reference, excellent and very complete program.

[karteks]

Hi
yes thanks for the program
i admit i didn't go into such considerations when i decided the dimensions, i went for a "look right" criteria only.
However the shelves do not suffer any twisting/bending at all and look pretty sturdy.
They are not loaded with many books however, mainly because i don't like the look of it!

[rimar2000]

Karteks, surely you do not have small children: sons, nephews or grandchildren, who want to perch on the shelves to grab something is up. They always do what one least expect, especially when least expected.

[NikonDork]

Simple and elegant. Even like the colors you picked :)

Im gonna make something similar when I redo my livingroom. Thanks for the ideas!