Best wood for shelf

[gerbils]

Looking to build a shelf that will sit inside a recess formed by a chimney breast and wonder what the best wood to use is?

I had planned on building a ladder frame and adding a top and bottom.

The width of the shelf is quite wide, approx 10ft

It will be pained white a bit like the attached image so no need to have raw wood showing.

 

[bluebaron]

Thats a very think shelf. I would use 18mm MDF, cheap and easy to paint. 10 ft would need some support though.

 

[foxhole]

You will need it breaking up into two or three sections , 10ft is too long unless you intend steel reinforcements.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

If you'd like to see the effect of weight in terms of shelf deflection, key-in the data on the shelf sizes and materials to the Sagulator. According to that a 10ft long shelf some 300mm wide and made from 25mm MR-MDF and loaded with 60 kg of books will droop 1.7in or 43mm in the middle.... So either put in more uprights (to shorten the shelves) or go for a floating shelf type approach

 

[gerbils]

OK so I actually measured the s[ace instead of guessing - it's no where near 10ft :/

it's 2m pretty much exact. Does that change things?

 

[bluebaron]

Not really no i would span max 60cm with 18mm MDF maybe 75cm with 25mm. Unless you get stupidly thick shelving 2m is too wide without support, or as suggested above a floating shelf but more expensive.

Above is one I built a few years ago.

 

[gerbils]

OK thanks - this is the construction I was thinking of doing:

We can't really have any supports going downwards so I guess a floating shelf system is my only option?

We want it similar to the bottom shelf in this photo:

 

[bluebaron]

looks ok but would put anything to heavy on the outer edge