How put together boltless metal shelves?

[Judith2]

Hi- I bought boltless metal garage shelves from a company that shall remain nameless. When it arrived, there were no cross beams to support the shelves. Any advice on how to put it together when there doesn’t seem a way to maintain stability of the 4 vertical columns, while at the same time trying to hammer a shelf into those columns?

Thanks! 
Judith

[Judith2]

‘Boltless’- not ‘bottles’! 

[JacobZ]

Hi @Judith2,

Thank you for your question about putting together boltless metal shelves.

Without seeing the shelves it's hard to say. If you had some photos, they would certainly help with troubleshooting the issue.

With metal shelves I have put together, I have laid two of the legs on the ground, with the feet against a hard surface such as a wall and tapped a rail into place. I did this twice, so that I had two of these and then stood one against the wall and held the other away from it so that I could attach the two pairs of legs together. Once three rails where in place, it was relatively easy to install the fourth, forming the shape of the shelf. After this it was simply a matter of lining up the shelf rails and tapping them into place.

This was with metal shelves similar to these Pinnacle 1830 x 1820 x 540mm 4 Tier Heavy Duty Shelving Units, so if the shelves you have are completely different, I would have to see them in order to offer different advice to this.

Let me know if you need a hand uploading images, I'm happy to help if required.

Jacob

[Judith2]

Hi Jacob, thanks for your reply. I should say at the outset that I didn’t buy these shelves from Bunnings, mores the pity! Unfortunately, they didn’t come with cross supports, so trying to keep all the pieces aligned while hammering the shelves into the struts was really difficult- also, as the flanges on the shelves were too short (imho), so they kept popping out of the slots on the struts.

Once I got a helper, we were able to hold the pieces together and finish the project. 
My lessons learnt- buy shelving that has cross supports; always get a helper to assist!! 

[JacobZ]

Hi @Judith2,

A second set of hands is often times the answer. Clamps are usually helpful, but you can't give them directions unfortunately.

I'm glad to hear you managed to sort things out in the end.

Jacob

[Judith2]

…and sometimes, when it’s a close family member, even the helper ‘won't take instructions’😈😈

thanks again for your advice!

cheers,

Judith

[Judith2]

Hi all- a couple of things that helped in the end-

1.Put the vertical legs together first, so they were the full finished height

2. Leant 2 verticals at an angle against a wall, then attached the first horizontal shelf at the bottom of those 2- that gave stability to the whole construction and made it easier to put the other shelves in

4. Once first shelf was in place, attached the other 2 verticals to the bottom shelf

3. Checked periodically (obsessively?😏) to be sure I’d  put the shelves in the right way up/down (first time round, I didn’t, and so they just fell out!!).

This method took me about 30 minutes, reduced the number of banged thumbs and the amount of swear words!😈) 

Cheers,

Judith

[JacobZ]

Hi @Judith2,

Thank you for updating us with your method for putting together your metal shelves. 

It will surely help any readers who are struggling with this kind of project.

Jacob