ray...
The happy Nada Farmer, dazed and confused.
Some are bored by my little projects, which I understand,
so I'm separating this out to see how it works.
This was the process I used to re-engineer the shelving parts I had, into something I could use. I needed to modify the blue cross members, who's hooks didn't match the hole layout in the green uprights. I had cut the green leg assemblies with the chop saw to the height I needed, they had been damaged by tow motors, the same as
the yellow ones I used for the other shelving system. I wanted to add more shelving in the far rear corner of the machine shed. And these were the parts I had to work with.
I used my anvil to back up the blue cross members and flattened them out.
After I flattened out the hooks the next step was to create an attachment method that would still be adjustable and match the holes in the uprights. I had a box of 3/8ths bolts, with heads the exact size I needed.
So I made a jig to place the holes consistently, and drilled three holes in the flattened face of the blue bracket. I just left the excess hook metal, as it wasn't going to be in my way. This was a single shelf unit, I had no more uprights to expand it with.
The third (center) hole was just in case I needed to actually bolt them tight for some reason, I wasn't sure how well this was going to work so I left a "cheat," just in case I needed it. I used the green section i removed from one of the shortened leg scraps to space the bolt heads the correct distance from the bracket, and then welded the bolts in place.
The welds were sort of weird because the holes weren't complete, and completing them, risked the chance of welding the "spacer bracket" in place, not a good thing.
But, as you can see here, the brackets fit great, and the shelf crossbars are pretty securely in place. And as I will probably never overload anything with heavy items, just small engines and tow motor parts, and such I'm sure it will never be a problem. And I managed to maintain the adjustably, I'm pretty happy overall.
Here's what the the exposed part of the modification looks like after the bolts are cut off. Eventually I will hit them with some spray paint. This also shows that the hooks would need to be cut off if there had been another set of cross members available, but as I didn't have anymore parts, it works just fine to leave the hooks flattened out.
The Chores, Fresh Air, Green Acres is for ME.
