Storage shelf welding project completed

Great project. Nicely done!!!

Ivan Vegvary

Hammerite?

huh? is there a question in there somewhere? :)

This pretty well matches my experience with building shelving. Nice Job!

BobH

Yes, the AC-225. It's not something I would have bought by choice. At half price, for a unit that was almost new, it was just too good a deal to walk away from.

I used it only quickly to to make sure it worked. Don't have a feel for how well it works but figured it would be fun to have. It's a classic machine and I like stick welding. I don't suspect it will get much use because I'm more likely to just MIG anything I need. But if I needed to weld some thick material outside there's a good chance I would try stick instead of changing the MIG unit over to flux core. I've only used DC stick for the most part so I don't have a feel yet for how I will like the AC only machine. It's also nice just to have it so I can learn what it's like. I've picked up a box of 6011 and 7018 AC rods to play with as well.

It also gives me another option if someone wants to borrow a welder. I'd rather give them the $130 Lincon than my $800 Miller. :)

If I actually wanted a stick welder, I would probably have looked for a generator based unit I could use remotely without power. That would have been a more useful addition to what I already have.

But I do get a kick out of just owning _two_ welders now. :)

Great job, and I admire the tenacity it took to complete it.

If it isn't too late, I would suggest that you use a roller and paint all the shelves. It won't take long, and you will wish you had done it later on.

Emmo, whose son calls me "The curator of the Museum of Unfinished Projects"...

Curt, great job. Looks fantastic. Yes, do paint it as someone else said.

It's not too late. Nothing is on the shelves yet. In addition, the wood is not attached to the metal frames. They just sit inside the shelf trays so it's easy to take them out to replace them or paint them. I thought about painting them but then decided it would just be overkill. But then as I was installing them and noticing some of the splinters and dust coming off of them I was thinking maybe I should have painted them. OSB however already has a sort of "finished" coating to it to be begin with (I guess it's the glue that holds it together?). I also wondered if I painted them, the paint would just be marked up up sliding stuff on and off the shelves and end up making it look worse instead of better - or worse let, potentially getting paint marks on the stuff I put on the shelves.

Maybe I'll paint one or two of the shelves to see how it works....

Yeah, I have my share of those as well. But when I talked my wife into letting me drop a grand on welding equipment to build the shelves, it wasn't really an option to not finish them. :)

Any thoughts on what type of paint to use for the wooden OSB shelves? I was wondering if the epoxy based paint they sell for painting a garage floor might be an option that would hold up well on the shelves? I've never used the stuff so I don't really know what it's like.

I fear something like a latex house paint wouldn't hold up well when I slide heavier items on and off the shelves.

I am personally more interested in painting metal before it starts rusting. I would just use some sort of cold galvanizing, or rustoleum paint with proper primer.

Back when they still allowed wooden shelves in grocery stores we used enamel.

As to my other comment. The metal looks like a rough finish. I was wondering if you used a rough finish paint on it like Hammerite. (I personally like Hammerite).

I already painted the metal with Rustoleum. The other poster was just talking about painting the wood as well. (I assume - maybe he too didn't look close enough at all the pictures to see I included about 10 pictures of the shelf frame painting process).

I've never heard of Hammerite. I used a Rustoluem product called "hammered finish". Here's a picture of the can:

I was looking for a generic simple gray but even with a large display which had maybe 100 different types of Rust-Oluem paint products, there was no simple gray except a couple cans under the shelf that looked like it was a discontinued item (and a few auto-paint primers). I needed more than two cans, so I went with the "hammered" finish instead and really liked the result. I think it took about 8 cans to do all the shelves.

Dman, forgot to stop the long links from wrapping....

Here's the links that aren't wrapped (I hope)...

Rustoleum hammered finish paint is very cool looking, only downside is cost. You will find Hammerite everywhere you look now that you know about it. It isn't any better paint IMO.

Grant

A guy I worked for years ago had a young lady, sand, repair, primer, and paint a service utility truck with grey Hammerite, and then light sand and clear coat. He whined for months about the cost, but it was one of the coolest looking service trucks I have ever seen. No clue how it would have held up. He sold the truck 6 months later to a tire company who sand blasted it and painted it white. Then uncareing employees beat the truck to death in a year.