Life on the frozen tundra of South Dakota Life on the frozen tundra of South Dakota

Project Completed February 2002

Project Completed February 2002

A couple of years ago, our church went through a remodeling project. Most of the work was done by volunteer labor, for which many of us gave up nearly every weekend for almost a year. One of the things that was done was to completely gut and revamp the sanctuary.

Prior to the remodeling, we had a set of speakers for the P.A. sitting on metal stands at the front of the sanctuary on each side. These were always in the way, and somewhat of an eyesore, so I decided to relocated them to the wall. I ran the wires to the speakers through the wall, but had to come up with some form of support.

The contractor working on the job was just going to nail some plywood to the studs, but I knew those wouldn't hold too long because each speaker was around 100 pounds. I also wanted the shelves to not be another form of an eyesore, just in a more convenient spot. I decided to design and build these shelves.

The design isn't complex. The birch plywood shelf sits in a groove cut in the center of the pine edging. This forms a lip to keep the speaker from being able to vibrate off of the shelf. The bottom braces are formed by joining two pieces of pine using mortise and tenons in a triangular shape, then attaching these to a backer with more mortise and tenon joints.

The whole assembly is very strong. I attached the shelf to the wall studs along the top rail, then used heavy-duty 90# wall anchors to attach the bottom braces (because they didn't line up with the studs.) I capped the screw holes with wood pegs. I am able to hang from these shelves, and they easily support the weight of the speakers.

Watching me hoist the speakers up onto these shelves was probably pretty entertaining as well...

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This page last updated on 06/28/2018