Live Edge Floating Shelves

Here is a simple guide to making live edge floating shelves. This was a school project and this is how it turned out.

First, you have to gather your tools, Heres what I used.

· Wooden mallet (any type of hammer will do)

· 25mm Chisel (any size works)

·Electric sander

·Electric sander discs

·Electric saw

·Wood glue

·Desired length of wood

·Wooden Dowels

You have to find any live edge piece of wood and get a slab of any length. This mostly depends on how big you want your shelf to be.

Once you find your slab or wood, you have to de-bark the slab. I used the 25mm chisel and wooden mallet for this step but anything that can help you debark, this is only what I used.

Try not to accidentally chisel any actual bits of wood out as it will be more time consuming while sanding.

For this project my piece of wood was 9’11 15/16 in feet.

Once your done with step 1, start sanding the piece of wood with an electric sander. For this project i used an electric sander, but any type of sander will work.

You may also put the wood through a planer if you’d like.

Sand it until is is nice and clean.

(skip this step if your wood isnt warped)

Here my wood started warping, so I will show you how to straighten it back out.

The method i used was getting the wood moist where I had the warp.

This changes by wherever your warp is. After moistening the wood, you can flip the moist side over then put some weight on that side. Make sure the weights distributed properly.

After 1 Day, it should be back to normal! Another method is sanding out the high areas where the warp is. After enough sanding it should be back to normal, it might be a bit thin though.

Last method if nothing else works is running the wood through a planer multiple times until the high ends are even with the low ends. If the warps on both ends, do the last method on both sides. Once again, it might be thin afterwards.

For my floating shelves, i made them 19 inches long each, And I made 6. For this I used a back saw. Any kind will work but it depends on how long you want you shelves to be. Make the measurements of how long you want you wood to be, then draw a line, then cut across the line.

For this step, I cut off one of the live edge sides. You can choose which side you want to cut off. I did this so i could attach it to the shelf with that cut side.

Now you must make brackets for your shelves. I used simple pieces of wood to cut for this. The size of the brackets depend on how big you made your shelves. For this project i did 6’’ wide, 8’’ tall and 3.5’’ for the middle. You can use an electric cutter or a normal saw but i used an electric saw for this. You have to mark the lengths desired on your piece of wood, then you will cut it.

Once you have cut the pieces of the brackets out, you will have to attach them.

Use wood glue to attach the 3 pieces together.

You will use this again soon.

Drill holes through all of the dowels with some sort of tool. The measurements once again depend on the size of your brackets. After you cut 3 holes (1 into the side, another on the other side, and 1 through the 3.5’’ fully) You will grab the dowels and wood glue now. Put wood glue into the holes you drilled and push dowels into them. After doing this with every bracket you will wait for 1 day at least for the wood glue to dry.

You will once again sand, except you will make the brackets and boards very smooth. Start with 60 roughness and move your way up to 180. This will make the boards and brackets very smooth. This is for the purpose of putting a finish on your boards and brackets.

Put a finish of your desire onto the boards and brackets. Let this dry for 1 day.

Once the finish drys, You will attach all of the parts together, then attach to your wall.