monkeys designed my bookshelf

[LCHIEN]

At work I have these cheap bookshelves, the kind you buy at the store for probably $90 for a 6-foot, 30-inch side, simulated woodgrain, vinyl-clad particleboard bookshelf.
It has slab sides with five shelves, one shelf fixed in the middle and two pairs of adjustable shelves on pegs.

Well just before Christmas, I'm sitting there and I hear a loud crack and what has happened is that one of the top shelf peg has given way shearing off and that causes the second peg on the same end to fail and the whole thing pancakes onto the 2nd shelf and causes both of the pegs on that end to shear and then the two shelves weight comes to rest on the fixed shelf which holds up.

So what the monkeys who designed this did was use plastic shelf pins, not only that but the thinnest (and cheapest) 5mm pins instead of the 1/4" pins commonly available.

I stopped at the hardware store and got some brass shelf pins, twice, once because I bought 1/4" pins and then had to return them for 5mm pins. I had to drill out the stubs of the old plastic pins... move all the books and put them back. Had to put the $3 for the pins on my expense report. All told those 5 cent plastic pins probably cost the company $100 in repair effort and wasted time.

I'm waiting for the pins on the two bottom shelves to shear off next.

[chopnhack]

Another victim of corporate purchasing! It amazes me how companies can spend so much money on often poor quality items because of their contracts or suppliers. Loring, while you were at it why didn't you replace the lower ones? Are they glued in or otherwise inaccessible?

[LCHIEN]

another $4 for pins, and 50 pounds of books, and time...
I'll just wait for it to break...

and orignially the 1/4" pins came in a pack of 16 and I was going to do them all but the 5mm pins for some reason only came in 8, so...

[chopnhack]

bummer, sounds like its only a matter of time. Can you reinforce it before it does break? Gussets below if there's room, threaded rod to span the distance and tension it a bit, blocks under the lower shelf? Would suck if you came back to work and the books were everywhere again. Good luck.

[Old Dutchman]

Shelf pins:

$4.00 for 16 pins isn't cheap, considering they punch them out for about a dime per dozen! Do You have a hobby shop nearby, They may stock some bright 1\4 in. rod, and You can cut for pins. Beats waiting for a order to come in. We have one also. They aren't made to hold a lot of wait, A ptoject for the workshop!

[LCHIEN]

$4.00 for 16 pins isn't cheap, considering they punch them out for about a dime per dozen! Do You have a hobby shop nearby, They may stock some bright 1\4 in. rod, and You can cut for pins. Beats waiting for a order to come in. We have one also. They aren't made to hold a lot of wait, A ptoject for the workshop!

16 pins were $8

[phrog]

I hate plastic (most of the time). It seems manufacturers always use it where the most stress occurs.

[os1kne]

I've probably put together about 10 of those over the years that were purchased for work or by relatives. Office supply stores used to sell them pretty cheap, probably still do. Total junk.

A couple of years ago, my wife purchased some bookshelves from Ikea to use in our children's rooms. I wasn't very familiar with Ikea at the time, but I assumed that the quality would be similar to the office supply store junk. My wife nicely stated that I probably couldn't build anything as nice for the same amount of money in a reasonable amount of time - and she was right. I've been impressed with the quality of the RTA items that we've purchased from Ikea, they seem to engineer their products very well.