This, my friends, is the stealth shelf.
It looks like a normal shelf from the outside, but when this skull is placed in just the
right position, the bottom will come out revealing whatever you have hidden on the inside.
When I first saw the stealth shelf on the King of Random’s YouTube channel, I knew
I had to have one and I knew my subscribers would get a kick out of it as well.
So I messaged him and I asked him if I could show how it works, how it’s made, the construction
and how to mount it to a wall on my channel.
Lucky for us he had an extra kit for me to assemble and he’s about to have a whole
lot more kits for everyone to assemble with his Kick Starter.
So if you want a stealth shelf of your very own, finish watching this video to see how
it’s made and mounted to a wall, and then check out the link in the video description
to get a stealth shelf of your very own.
The Kick Starter ends this week though, so don’t waste too much time.
Let’s get started.
So here’s my stealth shelf kit.
The package of the Kick Starter kit might look a bit different, but all the construction
will be the same as what I show you here in this video.
First make sure you have all the parts.
The kit starts off with the base of the shelf; it has the two circles drilled into the top.
And then the three crown molding pieces that make up the side.
Then the middle section with its two side pieces.
And the large top rectangle with its three thin trim pieces.
A package of screws...the hinges…the chains…and the magnetic lock which I’ll show you in
a bit.
Let’s start with the core of the shelf.
This is what’s going to hold all of the shelf weight so it’s pretty important.
I’m going to use the four large screws that go through the back board into each of the
little arms.
Pay attention to how the arms are oriented.
The diagonal cut on each arm is facing down and there is a little bit of space on that
back board under each arm.
I’m going to show this whole project only using hand tools, but if you have a drill
it will speed things up considerably.
Either way, this project doesn’t take very long, all the hard work is already done for
you.
Now that my core is done, let’s set that off to the side and start with my top shelf
piece.
This is the largest wood rectangle in your kit.
Each of these thin little decorative trim pieces will go around the edge of the board
to hide the compartment door below it and to hide the layers of the top board itself.
So I use a dab of wood glue and spread it thin all along where the trim is going to
touch.
Spreading the wood glue thin helps it get tacky faster and it won’t ooze out when
you put the trim in place.
If you are going to stain your finished shelf, oozing wood glue would not look good with
stain on it.
So be careful not to get glue on any visible exterior wood.
I line up my trim with the top layer of wood just below the flat surface of the shelf and
then I use a super small finish nail to pin it in place – also included with the kit.
If you notice the decorative trim is not flat, so in order to sink the nail into the surface
of the trim you’ll need a nail setter.
If you don’t have one of those you can use a longer screw or nail to get that head into
the surface of the wood.
The side pieces of trim go on the exact same way.
Just make sure to line up each of the 45 degree precut angles with each other to make nice
corners.
Set the top on a soft rag or towel to not damage the trim as you are working on the
opposite end.
The nice thing about this kit is that everything is already precut.
Alright, now that our core and our top piece is done, we’re going to assemble the base.
Lining up these huge angles can be tricky.
I’m going to use the same wood gluing technique as before.
Before I line up the trim pieces with the bottom board corners, I’m going to poke
a small hole where my nail is going to sit.
This will keep the nail from sliding out of place when I hammer it down.
You receive quite a lot of little finish nails in this kit so feel free to add a few here
and spread them out along the rest of the project trim as you need them.
Adding the side pieces to the bottom crown molding gets a little trickier.
The most important part is that corner, or seam, where the two pieces of molding meet.
I want them to line up perfectly.
I add one small nail to the bottom corner of the board and then I tacked the top corner
of the trim with another nail after they are perfectly lined up.
This holds them in place as I add a third little nail to the far bottom corner after
pulling it down just a tiny bit so that it’s parallel with the bottom of the base.
Let’s watch this other side and it will make a little more sense.
I add wood glue to all sides just like usual and then get that bottom corner next to the
seam nailed first.
Then I’ll nail that top corner of the molding to get it to line up perfectly.
Now this crown molding was just a tiny bit off with that angle cut.
But since I’ve already lined up that corner seam perfectly and nailed it into place, it
can flex a little bit before I nail it to the base of the shelf and the seam will still
be perfect because it was nailed first.
Inside of your kit there is a small angle of wood.
This is part of the latch.
I decided that the strongest place for this latch to be is in the center of the shelf.
Add a little bit of wood glue to the bottom and then nailed the little sliver into the
crown molding with the small finish nails; one on the top and one on the backside, making
sure that the nails aren’t going to poke through the shelf into the front before I
nail them in place.
If you have any extra small finish nails, feel free to spread them around the rest of
the trim so everything is held securely in place.
And before I add any hardware I’m going to add the color.
One nice thing about building your own shelf is that you get to pick the color.
You can stain it or paint it however you want.
I chose a dark stain.
I apply a thin coat of stain with a rag and while it’s still wet I wipe off the excess
liquid so it leaves an even coloring across all of the wood.
It helped to dribble a little bit of extra stain into the fine details of the crown molding
since the rag wouldn’t reach it directly and then I can wipe off the excess still.
No matter what you decide to use – regular paint or stain, make sure that you start in
a non-visible area like the inside or the bottom so that any early mistakes will be
hidden from view.
Now that the stain or paint is dry we can add the hardware.
These are called mortise full overlay cup hinges.
In this kit all of the hard leg work is already done.
The hole in the base is drilled out and the screw locations on that center core piece
that we already assembled are pre-marked as well.
You should expand the hinge first though.
Just loosen up that top screw and slide the middle part up.
It is a small adjustment bit it will give you a bit more room to play with.
Tighten that top screw back down to finalize the adjustment.
The bottom screw on this hinge is used to adjust how close the bottom drawer sits to
the wall.
I’ll show you that in a second.
Loosely screw the hinges into the pre-marked holes on the center core but don’t tighten
them all the way down just yet.
We need to get the screws lined up in the bottom part of the hinges first.
Then when all the screws are lined up, tighten each screw all the way.
It’s time to attach the top shelf.
I propped up the center core with my pliers so that the core is level.
Then I took the larger nails and hammer that top board into the center core, making sure
to sink a few nails into the core arms as well for security.
And it works.
The shelf opens and closes without the bottom board touching the table.
This is important because if it touches the table during the opening process, it will
also touch and damage your wall when it’s hung up.
The nice thing about these hinges is that you can adjust the bottom screw, so if it
touches the table or you just want a bit more space, screw in that bottom screw a bit and
it will lift that bottom edge of your shelf away from the wall giving it more room to
move.
Now for the magic.
This is a little plastic lip that goes with the locking mechanism.
This lip gets installed flush with that little piece of extra wood that we nailed in earlier.
Make sure that the top of this latch, the little piece of wood, and the top of the molding
are all flat with each other.
Here is the magnetic lock when any strong magnet gets close, it unlocks itself, even
through the thick top board of this shelf.
Lining this magnetic lock with that little plastic lip is pretty easy.
I use the toothpaste trick from Grant’s video.
I applied toothpaste to the top of the little plastic bit and when the shelf is shut, a
dap of toothpaste gets left on the top board letting us know generally where the lock needs
to sit.
I marked the screw holes of the lock and then set my two screws in place.
It doesn’t need to be super exact at this point because the lock can be slid up or down
along the screws.
So if it doesn’t connect with the plastic the first time, adjust it again until the
whole latch is making contact with its little plastic counterpart.
Then when the magnet is placed on top, it will unlock allowing you full access to your
hidden goodies inside.
Now this last bag contains the chains.
I use my screwdriver to pilot a little hole into the arms of the core and then stick the
screw into the circular washer and then through the chain.
And then repeated the process on the other end of the chain, making sure that both chains
had the same tension on either side.
So mounting a shelf is going to be a new puzzle all by itself.
In most North American homes we have something called drywall which is the outside of the
wall.
If you screw a shelf into drywall, the shelf can’t hold much weight.
This is what happened when my roommate put these floating shelves in and this one ripped
out of the wall.
So with my floating shelf, since it’s going to have stuff inside of it, we want to find
something called a stud.
The studs happen every 16 inches inside of this drywall.
You can take a stud finder and place it on a wall to tell you where the studs are at,
or you can just knock on the wall…wait till you hit something solid and you found a stud.
So if you’re going to be hanging your shelf on concrete or brick, you’re going to need
something like this.
This is called a lead anchor.
You drill a hole in the concrete or the brick, set the lead anchor, and then your screws will
go through the shelf and into the anchor.
Supposedly these anchors hold about 50 pounds so as long as you have one anchor on either
side of the shelf you should be good to go.
So these holes are drilled exactly 16 inches apart and so they should be able to hit two
studs right there on that wall.
The holes drilled into the back of the shelf make it easier to find the studs.
I set one screw into place and then used the level to make sure that the shelf isn’t
sitting crooked before putting in the rest of the screws.
Remember, measure twice, cut once.
Double check all of your measurement and stud locations before hanging a shelf.
Alright so we have the shelf installed.
I’ve taken a skull and put in some magnets on the bottom of them.
They are the Rare Earth magnets that you can get on Amazon for pretty cheap.
And so when I line this skull up with the little lock, it will latch and unlatch.
So we can close it up.
It’s locked.
Looks like a normal shelf.
Then when I take the skull…unlock it…it will drop back down.
Now Grant, the King of Random, is using his shelf to hid weapons, passports or even money.
But my own research has concluded that this shelf is perfect for hiding 60 Oreos…or
200 strands of licorice…or even
3,481 Skittles.
[The sound of epic deliciousness]
If you want one of these kits for yourself I will link the Kick Starter in the video
description of this video.
If you enjoyed watching this project and want to see a bunch of other creative projects
by the King of Random, head on over to his YouTube channel.
Thanks for watching.
Hope to see you around!
So there’s the shelf.
Just barely finished the Skittle scene…luckily we didn’t get too many on the carpet.
My little makeshift funnel worked out pretty well.