branagan custom

This is my experience building the following project from my early days of woodworking:

This is another project from before I fell down the hand tools rabbit hole circa 2020, and was looking for simple power tool projects. It’s also another project my wife suggested, she actually sent me the link to the video and I figured why not? It seemed straightforward enough to give it a shot as a beginner hobbyist with virtually no experience or tools. I have no idea how she came across it.

These floating shelves are simple and clever, and they lasted well for a few years until I took them down when moving home and didn’t use them in the new place.

If you haven’t already, go watch the Youtube video before reading on because that’s the best step-by-step on this project. I want to recount my experience, mistakes and results. And of course, talk about making this project with hand tools which would be my preference now.

At the time I had a bare bones toolkit – a jigsaw, sander, electric drill, some clamps and squares etc. I had recently added a cheap circular saw too and wanted to put it to use. I built these shelves while my workshop was on the balcony of our one-bedroom apartment, on phase two of my first workbench. It was no easy task, with lots of questionable workholding, but I somehow managed to make it work. As best I could with the space and tools I had, I simply followed the steps in the video.

I started by picking up a 2×12 and a ½ inch dowel at the big box store. Nowadays I am more careful in my lumber selection from the big orange store but back then I had no clue what to look for so I grabbed the first 2×12 I could find. I crosscut the 2×12 to length and laid out the holes to drill. My little pre-owned 12v Dewalt drill really struggled just to drill these ½” holes. I used a spade bit which reamed out the holes so the dowel was a loose fit, and also didn’t drill exactly square which made fitting everything together in the end a little difficult. It’s important to drill them dead straight, if they are tilted one way or another it can be really difficult to put the shelves together – think of the dowels being slightly “dovetailed”, and this is what you want to avoid.

To fix the loose dowels, I wrapped masking tape around them one layer at a time, testing the fit after every layer. Eventually I got them nice and snug. They weren’t all dead square but this was nothing a few knocks with a mallet couldn’t fix.

After drilling the holes I cut the back “bracket” off with the circular saw. I marked a line as best I could and freehanded it. These didn’t turn out too bad but were way out of square so I had to keep track of which pieces fitted each other and in what orientation.

With the basic construction done I sanded with my orbital sander and (following the video’s instructions) stained them for finish. The sanding job was terrible with pigtail scratches everywhere but this was my first time sanding with an orbital sander and I didn’t know any different. After sanding to 220 (to the best of my ability at the time) I used wood conditioner before applying the stain because anything I read online said wood conditioner helps pine take stain more evenly. After the conditioner I applied two coats of stain. The result was terrible, even with the conditioner. Again my excuse is that this was my first time.

At this point the only thing left to do was mount the shelves on the wall and see if they’re really all they’re cracked up to be. This went about as well as it could. I first screwed the “bracket” to the wall with one screw, checked for level then screwed in a couple more screws. I drove the dowels into the holes then fit the shelf onto the dowels, finally putting one screw through each shelf into the middle dowel to hold them in place.

I have to say I was pleased with the results and really liked how they broke up this otherwise plain wall. The shelves looked great as decoration (from a distance) but overall weren’t extremely strong. I could flex them with light pressure so wouldn’t store anything more than picture frames, a light book or two etc on them.

An important note is that this was before I discovered hand tools and thought powertools / machines were what woodworking is all about. That was my only focus on this project, learning the power tools and relying only on them – circular saw, sander, drill. If I were to build this project again I would do it completely differently. 

If I were starting this over now, the first step would be lumber selection: looking for clear, straight, cooperative grain. The 2×6 I picked had the pith right down the middle and was loaded with knots and tearout. 

Once I had the right lumber, first would be to crosscut the material to length then plane the surfaces to clean them up and remove any major cup/bow/twist. Next would be to plane one reference face and edge – the main reason to do this being to mark the line to saw off the back edge, straight and parallel to the edge. One big lesson learned is that for the holes and dowels, I would drill some test holes in a scrap board to check the fit of the dowel before drilling the holes in the shelves. Once I had the right sized bit, I could drill the holes with a brace and bit then rip the boards along the marked line. The saw marks would have to be planed out at this point for the bracket and shelf to seat together properly. Test fit with the dowels and once these were snug I would probably assemble them and shape/profile them somehow with a plane instead of sanding a roundover on the edges. To clean up the surface I would smooth plane them and hand sand to 220 grit. The finishing process would be a lot more simple, I would definitely skip the stain. A coat or two of my own boiled linseed oil/mineral spirits/spar urethane mix then a coat of paste wax would round out the project nicely.

This is a nice, quick, simple project and can make some really attractive (and cheap) floating shelves. I’d encourage anyone to give it a shot as an afternoon project, especially beginners as a low-stakes learning experience. As simple as they are, especially as a beginner there’s a lot to learn in these simple floating shelves.