I am going to try a little experiment making shelves from sandstone slabs. I am sure you have seen the shelves available at numerous retail outlets which fasten a bracket with two horizontal posts to the wall and then the shelf slides onto them so that the shelf appears to have no support. I want to make those from "thin" slabs of landscaping sandstone. I am going to use "Colorado Red" and "Arizona ?????". The Arizona is lighter in color. I am going to drill a 1/2" hole into the edge of the slab with a masonry bit on my drill press. I have made a jig to hold the slab upright. I am then going to weld 1/2" rod to some 3/32" steel plate about 1 1/2" wide. Then drill some holes in the plate and screw to the studs. Then slide shelf onto rod. Shelves will be no more than 8" deep and varying widths from 6" to perhaps 48" or so. Please feel free to respond with any observations, suggestions, admonitions, cautionary tales, etc. I would much rather have considered and discarded lots of trivial things rather than forget or not be told about some important ones. I plan on spinning the drill as fast as I can. Thanks, Bob

 

The main thing that concerns me is the 3/32" plate warping when welded to the rod. Also, how deep would the rod extend into the slab?

 

I can keep the plate from warping, I was thinking the rod would go at least 3/4 of the way through the shelf, i.e 6" in a 8" deep shelf, or 4.5" in a 6" shelf. Thanks for the reply.

Bob

 

Good luck. I think the shelves will look great. Those holes will not be fun to drill.