My heavy duty IKEA Expedit 5x5

Who will win? You or your wife?

 

Well, she just let me order a Fosgate Signature v2 phono preamp, so she gets to win on the shelf color.

 

Sweet! Congrats on a great unit!

 

What"s that saying? Happy wife...happy life ;-)

Yeah, I think she's right anyway. The white might be a bit glaring staring right back at you from your sweet spot. The birch is nice and mellow with your beautiful wood floors.

It's an awesome setup either way. One of my favorites on here. I've saved the pics as something to shoot for in designing my room someday.

 

Ok...so what do you do with the old ones? Sell em on CL?

 

Thanks for the thumbs up. After I get my Fosgate setup I will finally put some pictures with more detail in the Systems thread.

I think I will disassemble and then reassemble them in the basement to use for storage. They will come in handy that way; e.g. to shelve all the boxes we have for our 1:18 diecast collection of race cars, among other things.

 

I have just built a 5x5 Expedit unit & would like to add backing as you have done. How did you find screwing the plywood to the shelves & sides? I was thinking that once you put the plywood on the back you can't see where you need to screw. I have some Billy bookcases where you have to nail the backing to the frame & have nailed a bit too high before so the nail has gone through the top of the frame on the other side. I don't want to repeat the same mistake plus the shelves aren't very thick so there's a small margin for error. Did you just draw horizontal lines on the back of the plywood & use them as a guide? Since you're using multiple sheets you can use the visible part of the shelves as a guide? Did you have any problems screwing into the sides as they're not solid wood & did you use self tapping screws? I know some people have used small nails which would be easier to put in but obviously not to remove.

Any help would be much appreciated

 

White out marker and doted the center of each line of shelving. Then once I had the plywood laid and the corners screwed in, I used a chalk line and snapped a light marking to follow.
I think the screws were just 3/4" wood screws. I used square drive heads, not that it matters...but they are a lot easier to screw in with jumping the slot. For the one row that the plywood butted up agains in the center I put a scrap strip down it with a gap where my 1x6 would be.
Hopefully that helps you.
And I recant my wish for a bigger spacer. The one I used is actually perfect IMO. I think I said it was 1 5/8" but I think it was actually 1 3/8".

 

T

Thanks for the quick response. I'm going to give it a go.

 

You should post pics of it. Let me know if you have any questions.

Here is the back of the 1x5 I built after in the same manner. This shows the top cubby...the three screws across the bottom is the shelf, the two above that is for the spacer. You can even see my whiteout dot there. I put the screws that go on the sides below the shelf so as to not risk hitting the dowel, but the one in the middle is on the line.

 

I had the bad experience of trying to move an empty expedit two months ago.

Thought I'd pass on my experience with it.

Unfortunately, these units don't like to be moved. Lifting them seems to invariably result in very high stresses on the "locking screws" (in quotes because they're not really proper screws).

We tried to tilt one up onto a dolly. That's a no go. We could hear it creaking as we rolled it along on the dolly's wheels, and it broke apart at the back of the moving van.

I don't think there's any getting around having to disassemble one if you have to move it.

Incidentally, breaking it apart for the trash bin was interesting. The thick sides are made of a sort of honeycomb cardboard with a laminate veneer. It's amazing they hold what they do.

ccm

 

Before modifying this I would never have trusted my records on one of these. The side to side sway was terrible. The thing is a tank now.

 

I trust my records on them. I know of five of them in use that are fully loaded with records and never an issue.

Unless you try to handle the shelves after building them in place. That seems to be what kills them.

It's the lever action - you've got like more than a 6ft lever working on particleboard at the joints. When it's standing up it's all vertically aligned and stable.

ccm

 

I have successfully moved a couple of assembled 4x2s, survived several moves and still going strong...anything bigger (4x4 and 5x5) requires dis-assembly...in my experience.

 

Not to spam, but I built another vinyl record shelf in much the same heavy duty fashion. This one is a Kallax 2x2, but it was done as I did the 5x5 and my 5x1.

But this time I took photos and made a step by step guide for New Record Day. Wish I had done this guide for the 5x5, but I didnt. So if anyone wanted to reinforce a Kallax 4x4, here are the steps.
It's really a huge bump in stability. The final step I don't cover is you can anchor it to a wall, but that is gross overkill.
http://www.newrecordday.com/diy-ikea-kallax-record-shelf/