Cubicle-Hanging-Shelf-Work

I would call it bench-work, but that might be a little misleading. But simply calling a shelf would down play the design work I put into it. So, for lack of a better term, I give you my cubicle-hanging-shelf-work!

There were three main requirements for my self-work:

1. Minimal height
2. Cheap
3. No support legs on the front

I need the shelf-work to take up the least amount of space vertically because, after all, this is going into my cubicle at work. I have never built any bench-work, and most tutorials out there deal with the full size, permanent type. So, I pretty much designed from scratch what I thought would work.

I need cheap because I live in San Jose and am at the beginning of my career.  The thing is, here in San Jose, starting salaries aren't particularly better than other, cheaper locations. Its when you get into your career that you start to see a bigger difference.

Last, but certainly not least, I want no support legs on the front! This would totally make my workspace for real work hard to use. 'nuff said.

I decided to build the shelf-work out of 1x2s to minimize height. There are three long support beams oriented vertically, parallel to the wall. To support the surface, I laid cross-beams, oriented horizontally, every foot perpendicular to the support beams. The horizontal orientation also lowers overall height a bit. For support, I use a combination of premade, metal support brackets and custom wood supports as shown in the figures above.

To satisfy the cheap constraint, I actually used low grade furring strips. I always wondered why everyone uses really expensive grades or even plywood cut into 1x4s.  Its a model railroad! It doesn't have to be perfect, right?  Well, I see now that a model railroad has to be even more perfect than a house. All tolerances are now 1/87th the size, right? :) More importantly, There was too much play in the finished shelf-work and hard to get very straight pieces and good right angles.

But, I am still cheap, so I stuck with it.  It really isn't that bad, but I do have to be careful about movement, especially with a non-permanent cubicle wall. There is one that about my layout that I believe made my low-grade bench shelf-work even possible. I am using sectional track. Small flexing and movement of the shelf doesn't tear apart the layout because I don't attach every piece of track.  If I attached every section, I believe I would have a lot of broken trackbed.  Also, if I used flex track, solder joints would probably come undone and track would come unglued.

Ok, now that I have thoroughly bashed my work, here is the result! 

Not bad, not bad! It is actually surprisingly sturdy. Its out of the way, and I can stand up and enjoy my work when my 'work' is not. Below is a closeup of the front of the shelf-work.  I will use 1/8" ABS plastic cut into 4" wide strips for a fascia, attaching to the ends of the 1x2s.

If you will notice in the picture above, there is a Lego structure I did not mention in my previous post. This is the rail overpass for the rail line between Zurich HB and Zurich Flughafen (airport). See my idea post for a description about my inspiration for this layout.

The surface of this part of the layout is a cheap sheet of 1/8" hardboard. Again, this is not going to win any flatness competition, but it really serves my purposes quite nicely.  Nails are a bit tough, but nails are so 20th century anyway, right? I actually like screws because for some reason I hate to think I can't take something apart.

Despite a few structural quality issues, I believe this was a success. It is only 3" high, has no forward support legs, and cost about $35 for 22 feet of shelf.

Thanks for reading, Peter Lieber