The Problem of the Floating Shelf Bracket
The Fatal Flaw of Typical Floating Shelf Brackets
A typical floating shelf bracket with 4 inch spacking between drilled mounting holes… Not helpful!
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We designed the Sheppard Brackets floating shelf brackets to solve the fatal flaw that we have seen in all other floating shelf brackets. All other brackets of this style have mounting holes every four inches or more and when installing them, in order to hit studs, you can not install them wherever you want. You need to shift them over four inches at a time and when trying to center them on a wall that becomes a big problem. In order for them to have any strength they must be screwed into studs.
A typical story of someone installing a floating shelf may sound like this: Johnny Jones was installing a shelf one day on the back wall of a bathroom when this flaw in the bracket design became extremely obvious. That four inch movement at a time was awful because in order for the shelf to be centered he could not hit a stud and to install it on a stud just looked really bad.
The Solution to the Floating Shelf Bracket Flaw
Close up of the Studlock design for the Sheppard Brackets Floating Shelves Brackets… Very helpful!
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Hearing and experiencing things like this, Aaron Sheppard, owner of Sheppard Brackets, owns a metal working shop and went to work to design something better. The Sheppard Bracket Studlock system is the design he came up with (see image to the left). It has two big advantages over traditional brackets. First, of course you can mount it anywhere. Second, you can screw your first screw into the stud without the bracket in place, leaving the screw head a quarter inch from the wall. Then you can hook the screw with one of the keyholes in the top of the bracket. The taper in the screw head will be captured in the keyhole and you can then level the bracket and install the rest of the screws.
These brackets have a “keyhole” cut into the top of the bracket every 1/2 inch which allows extremely easy installation and also essentially gives you infinite mounting options. It also allows you to easily secure the bracket and shelf into every stud that is behind it. I call this The Studlock system. This system allows these brackets to be installed SOLID, exactly where you want them in minutes.
Design Features of the Sheppard Brackets Floating Shelf Bracket
Because this heavy duty floating shelf bracket is so versatile and can literally be attached to every single stud that falls behind it, the weight that it can carry is significantly higher than other floating shelf brackets that do not have this feather. The weight limit depends greatly on the number of studs the bracket is screwed into but typically you can count on floating shelves that are mounted with these floating shelf brackets holding 50 pounds per stud that they are secured to. This makes them extremely heavy-duty and reliable to put your most treasured items on without fear of shelf failure.
Prepared solid wood floating shelf. Heavy duty floating shelf bracket. Drilling plate for perfectly straight and spaced holes. Router template for true flush mount floating shelf installation…. Extremely helpful!!
The Sheppard Brackets also have other design and manufacturing points that help the contractor, DIY’er, and you in the process of installing a floating shelf. These concealed shelf brackets are hand welded from the backside by experienced welders so there is no weld on the front of the bracket to interfere with the shelf. We also manufacture and sell drilling templates to ensure that the holes in your floating shelf line up perfectly and are perfectly straight for the rods to go into. Also, to create the true flush-mount to the wall effect, we manufacture and sell router templates to create a perfect pocket for the bracket to fit into.
Sheppard Brackets are also manufactured from 3/16” heavy-duty steel, cut with a high-precision CNC machine right in the heart of Southeast Idaho. This makes the brackets very strong and extremely precise in measurements.
To see how easy it is to install a floating shelf using a Sheppard Brackets floating shelf bracket and tooling hardware, please watch the below YouTube video. And when you are ready to do your own floating shelf project, be sure to go to Sheppard Brackets to get set up with everything you need for a beautiful end product.
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How to prepare and install a solid barn wood floating shelf using Sheppard Brackets floating shelves brackets and hardware.
https://www.sheppardbrackets.com/about-heavy-duty-floating-shelf-brackets