How to make a strong support for wall shelves with scaffold pipes.

Strong wall shelves made from repurposed scaffolding.
Three shelf rack fitted to the wall.

An easy and strong method to attach shelves to a wall.
This is a very strong system, that is clear when you see the materials that are part of these shelf constructions.
Thick galvanised tubes and clamps from scaffolds are the perfect materials to make a strong frame.

Footplates assure a strong anchorage to the wall.
The rack on this picture has three levels, and they are supported against the wall with eight footplates, each with two or even four screws.
That makes a total of 16 to 32 anchor points to the wall, for only three shelves.
Imagine the weight that such a support can carry.

Wall shelves frame construction drawing.
Construction drawing how you can make a strong frame to hang shelves against a wall.

Step by step assembly of the shelf support frame.

Different versions.

On the picture at the right you can see a construction with shelving from the floor almost to the ceiling.
Just to show that you can make many different models for a shelf support rack.

  1. Cut all the tubes to their desired sizes.
    In this example we cut three tubes one meter long.
    For the connection between the T pieces and the footplates we will use eight 20 cm long tubes.
    The wood are planks with a width of 20cms.
  2. Slide two T connections around each one meter tube.
  3. The push a corner joint at each one meter tube ending.
  4. Slide a 20 cm. tube in each open piece of the joints.
  5. Now fit a footplate to the open tube ends, eight in total.
  6. Tighten all the allen bolts of the tube clamps.
  7. Place a thick plank on each support.
    Three planks, each one meter long and 20 cms. wide, three cms. thick.
  8. Attach each of the planks to its support with two half open tube clamps for wood.

These are the tube connections that you need for a rack from scaffold pipes.

For a three shelf rack you will need >> 4 Elbows, 4 T connections, 8 foot plates and 6 pipe straps.

See more examples for scaffolding furniture on the Dutch woodworking instructions.
Those construction drawings have automatic translation.

More shelving and storage systems made with reclaimed scaffolding.