Hi, there I'm Nils with LRN2DIY. And in today's video,
we're going to be showing you how to make these hex shelves or honeycomb
shelves.
You can really use any sort of lumber with this. In my case,
I found a good deal on some Walnut and some Ash,
and they have a nice contrast in colors. So I'm going to use those,
but you can also use some standard pine that you purchase at the hardware store.
And oftentimes this is already pretty smooth and it's cut to size. Now,
speaking of length, what you're going to need for this.
If you have eight inch sides on each side of the hexagon,
you'll need about 50 inches total. 50 inches gives you all the length you need,
plus a little extra for the room to make cuts. Now, for the cuts on this,
you're going to want to cut each of them at an angle of 30 degrees.
If you have a miter saw that can tilt to 30 degrees,
that's the easiest way to do this. If not,
you can just slide it to 30 degrees and then you'll cut your boards standing up.
You want to do one or the other? Now in my case,
I've got my fences cleared out of the way,
and I'm ready to make these cuts at 30 degrees.
You can also do this with a circular saw,
but it is a little less accurate and a little bit more of a pain to do,
but it is an option if you don't have a miter saw.
So make your first cut to get that 30,
then flip over the board and then you're going to measure out your eight inches
and make your mark...
Put your saw up to it so you know exactly where that cut's going to be at eight
inches, and then we're going to use a stop block. Now,
if you haven't used these before,
it's just a block that stays in one place the entire time you make the cut.
And it's really important that you use something like this because otherwise
you're going to be getting some sides that are not all the exact same length.
So here you see, we have our first cut and it's got the 30 degrees cut inside,
both ends. And now it's basically just a wash, rinse, repeat.
Just remember to flip that board over every time to get that 30 degree
cut on the inside each time,
and you should end up with a pile of six pieces that are all the same,
just like this.
Next step we're going to sand down each of the sides to make sure there's no cut
marks. And then once you've got those sanded and the face is sanded,
you should be ready to go. Now,
assembly is definitely the funnest part of this.
What you do is you lay all six pieces out side by side,
make sure there's a good tight fit between each of them.
And then you get out some tape. You can use painters tape for this,
which is what I'm using here.
And you don't technically need to run the whole length of it.
You can run about two or three inches on either side of the joints rather than
doing everything. But I found this to be quicker and easier.
Another tip is if you want to use packaging tape, the clear stuff,
that stuff has a much wider area to grab onto.
And it's also really good and sticky. So that works pretty well.
The nice thing about using painters tape is it comes off really easy the next
day. So we get that on there really nice and tight.
Then we're going to flip it over on its back and get ready to do some gluing.
And you can kind of see where we're going with this here.
So I'm going to play some glue on each joint, including that one on the end,
on the bottom, left there, and then spread out the glue on each of the joints.
And then we're ready to start rolling this thing up. I used a little
scraper to scrape off any squeeze out from the glue. And then after that,
I used a brad nailer with some inch and a half brads to secure everything.
Now that part is not technically required,
but you do want to have something besides just the glue to hold this in place.
And the reason is you're matching end grain to end grain and those do not tend
to hold on very well just with wood glue.
You can let that sit overnight and dry up. And then the next day you come back,
take off your tape and you're ready to start. Now.
Here's where I ran into some trouble. You can see this joint right here.
It's already starting to get a little bit loose.
What I'm doing is I'm using a nail set to try to set the brads all the way into
the wood and watch what happens.
You can see the joint that I've got pressed up against me;
with each hit it's becoming looser and looser until you end up with a huge gap
like this. So what I had to do is lay it down on its side.
I actually re strapped it with a tie-down with some scrap pieces of wood to not
mar the wood. And it was kind of a pain. I basically had to redo it.
But what I discovered is actually using the orbital sander with some 60 or 80
grit sandpaper will help knock those brads right down.
You'll definitely want to clip them first,
if there's a bunch hanging out with some snips,
but once you get the bulk of it off, then you can just sand it right down.
While I've got the sander going I'm sanding down all of the joints to make sure
there's no lips from one piece to the other. Next,
use that sander to get any glue off.
And then this next part is completely optional here.
But I really liked the look of putting a 45 degree bevel on the outside of each
of these.
So I set my router up with a 45 degree pointed bit and just ran each of the
sides through.
For finish I'm using some Minwax fast drying polyurethane,
and this is just a clear satin that I'm using in this case,
I'll put links to this and any other products I'm using in this,
in the description below.
And I'm just putting a fairly heavy coat on each piece here.
And I love the look of putting that first coat on a piece of Walnut like this.
It really helps the grain pop. It adds contrast,
and it just gives it a nice shine as well. Now,
as per the instructions with this finish,
you would want to let it sit for three to four hours,
then sand it down with 220 grit and then start putting your coats on and letting
each of those dry for 24 to 48 hours.
What I ended up doing is just doing one thick coat and just leaving it at that.
After that we brought them all in and took a look at all the different options
here. And you can see there's a million different layouts you can go with,
but in the end we liked this one, the best
I took the shelves back out to the shop and used a pre drill bit with a
countersink. I've got all of the pieces clamped together,
and I've got this laid out in such a way that I will only have to drive screws
through the Walnut. None of the Ash will have any screws in it.
And so I went with black screws since they would kind of hide themselves in that
dark Walnut. And they would still hold the whole structure together,
pretty securely.
Now mounting some shelves like this on the wall can actually be pretty tricky,
especially if you want them to be nice and strong and mounted into the studs.
My wife then held it at the exact height we want it to be at.
And then we marked the location of the studs on the actual shelves themselves.
I laid the shelves on the floor and on the back of the shelves marked exactly
where the studs would intersect with them,
both on the top of the shelf and on the bottom of the shelf so that we would
have two screws securing the shelves on each stud,
I then used a drill bit with a diameter just larger than the screw heads that I
was going to use and drilled at a slight upward angle. Next,
I use some painters paper and laid it out on both the top and the bottom so that
I would know exactly where the top and the bottom of the shelves,
where when I put this up on the wall and then using a mechanical pencil,
just poked a hole right in the center of each of the holes that I had drilled.
I then transferred that onto the wall. Got it. Nice and level,
and made sure that those holes lined up with the studs behind there.
I double-checked with the stud finder and everything was looking good.
At this point,
I could drive the screws in and I left them hanging out by about a half inch,
maybe about 15 millimeters. Now the moment of truth
with a little bit of finagling,
just to make sure everything popped in just right. They held on really nicely.
And with that, these shelves are done.
Now,
if you enjoy this video and you might want to check out our living room makeover
using vertical shiplap right here,
it was a fun process to redo the whole living room and give a whole fresh new
look to it. So check that out. Thanks for watching. And we'll see you next time.