Welded metal shelf brackets for floating shelves

after the metal primer was dried I painted the two decorative metal brackets with matte black paint

The combination of black painted iron and solid oak wood is not only suitable for the tables or for the office desks, but also for the floating shelves installed by using welded metal shelf brackets.

We have build oak countertops and table tops over time and we wrote about them in various articles (other articles will come sooner). So, we will not insist much on the shelf itself. All we can say is that this floating shelf was made out of 2 cm thickness continuous oak wood planks by using our simple clamping system which tightens and flattens the panel in the same time. The shelf is 100 cm long and 31 cm deep and it was protected with scratch-resistant polyurethane primer and varnish. The edges have been beveled so that there is no sharp edge.

I sanded the DIY oak wood floating shelf with granulation 120 sandpaper and I beveled the edges — The oak wood floating shelf is sanded with 120 grit sandpaper

the floating shelf was made out of 2 cm thickness solid oak wood, continuous lamella and it was protected with primer and anti-scratch lacquer polyurethane — The way that the floating oak wood shelf looks after applying the polyurethane primer and the polyurethane varnish

this is the final aspect of the floating shelf made made out of 2 cm thickness oak wood — The oak wood floating shelf

We chose a very simple model for the metal brackets. We used 2 cm square bar.

We cut 3 pieces from the metal bar for each small bracket to form a rectangular triangle with two sides of 30 cm and 20 cm. The other side, the hypotenuse had about 36 cm. We chose 30 cm for one side of the brackets because on this side will be fixed the oak floating shelf of 31 cm deep. In this way the shelf can be supported on the almost its entire width.

Another important aspect that we took into account is that we did not want that the screws to be visible (those screws with which the brackets will be fixed on the wall and those screws with which the shelf will be fixed on the brackets). Aesthetically, it is impossible not to see the heads of the screws, even if I wanted to use black screws. If I couldn’t find any black screws I was planing to paint them with the same black paint. Besides all these, we definitely would not have had space for the cordless screwdriver. The space between the sides of the brackets is very small, so they should be screwed manually and the tightening would not be perfect, but safe.

I drilled holes with an 8 mm drill bit: two on each side of 30 cm and one on each side of 20 cm. Then I made one 2 cm long channel, starting from each hole. These cutouts will help to fix the brackets on the wall and to fix the floating shelf on the brackets.

We also cut one of the corners of the brackets (the visible one), so that we can use metal caps, cut from the same metal bar. After we welded all the pieces, we sanded the welds very well and rounded the edges slightly using the angle grinder. You can see how our metal brackets look like in the pictures below. There are small holes left after the welding and sanding the iron.

this is how the two diy metal brackets look like after I welded the three pieces cut from the 200 mm square metal pipe — The DIY metal brackets after welding and sanding

This is the way that the two metal decorative diy brackets look like after cleaning the excess of the two-component polyester auto-kit — The way that the two DIY metal brackets look like after sanding the welds

We used a two-component polyester kit (or car body filler, putty), extremely useful for filling the little holes left after welding . First of all, this type of filler is very resistant and secondly it dries very quickly. The only disadvantage is that it hardens rather quickly and should be mixed in as small quantity as possible so that you do not throw away too much at each use.

I bought from the bricolage store a two-component polyester kit for filling the holes in metal surfaces, after welding — The two component polyester kit

We apply the filler with a spatula. It is preferable to apply a thicker layer to ensure that the holes have been completely covered to save more time. Otherwise, it is necessary to sand the filler and to apply another layer and then it is necessary another sanding.

This kind of filler can be very easily sanded even with 120 grit sandpaper.

I applied the two-component polyester kit to the corners of the DIY brackets to fill the unsightly holes after welding and sanding the iron — Applying the two-component filler kit to fill the remaining holes at the inner corners of the brackets

I applied the two-component polyester putty with quick drying everywhere where the holes appeared after the welding the two metal decorative brackets — The polyester putty for metal surfaces was applied to cover the small holes remained after the welding

after we have sanded the excess polyester kit, we will apply the primer for the metallic surfaces — The metal brackets before sanding the excess putty

We sanded very well the dry car body filler using the multi tool with 120 grit sandpaper on the flat surfaces. For the interior corners of the welded metal shelf brackets we sanded the excess putty, manually.

I sanded with 120 grit sandpaper the surplus of the car body filler, purchased from the bricolaje store, which is a special putty for filling the metal surfaces holes — The inner corners aspect after sanding the polyester putty

this is how the DIY decorative iron brackets look like, after I filled all the holes with the car filler putty and I sanded off the excess car filler putty — Detail of one corner of the bracket after sanding the putty

I have created two diy floating shelves metal brackets made out of 2 cm iron bar for mounting a 2 cm thickness solid oak floating shelf — The two metal brackets for a floating shelf made out of a square bar

We applied the primer for metallic surfaces. After the primer was dried we sanded it with 320 grit sandpaper to make the surface as smooth as possible.