In this one he tries out solid oak dowels, dados, and some seriously beefy screws. While checking out Andy's video, I came across Rusty Dobbs, who also has an interest in creating rock solid floating shelves he builds his own and tests various construction methods. I'm too far down the rabbit hole now, but you don't have to continue with me if going outside the (big) box (store) doesn't interest you. Even if you can manage to attach the brackets to multiple studs, there is a chance that the drywall itself will not fare well. That's why Andy's tests can surpass IKEA's weight limits for a single instance. They're factoring in dead loads over time and probably also the stress and deformation that the bracket, shelf, and load can cause on the drywall itself. Attaching only to drywall is not an option for longevity you will surely caused repeated stress and eventual failure even if the assembly can withstand initial landings from your 18 lb cat.īut what about attaching into a wood stud? As Andy points out at the end of his experiment IKEA is not just testing for the maximum force applied over a single instance, but for the lifespan of the shelf. Remember that the "soft" landing for the 12 lb cat created a load that translates into about 75 lbs. He then simulated a static load on the edge of the shelf, farthest away from the connection point and found that, when attached to drywall only, the shelf failed at a peak load of 25 kg or 5 times the manufacturer's recommendations. IKEA shows a maximum load of 5 kg for this assembly. The 43" shelf bracket was affixed to standard 1/2" equivalent drywall with expanding metal drywall anchors. IKEA's specifications say that when fixed to a wooden stud the 43" shelf has a max load of 15 kg/33 lbs and the 74" shelf 20 kg/44 lbs.Īndy Mac has tested the IKEA brackets under extreme conditions his results can be found in this blog post and related video. The 12" shelf does not, so we will disclude it from use as those piddly little brackets are utter shit. The 43" and 74" lengths both still use the internal metal bracket system. Next, let's examine the IKEA LACK shelves. While this experiment focused on the cat being dropped from a holding position and not jumping down of its own volition, I feel this information can still provide a valid basis for expectations. The results recorded a max force of 573 Newtons (~58 kg/128 lbs) and a minimum of 334 N (~34 kg/75 lbs). The parameters used are a 5.7 kg/12 lb cat and a direct downwards drop ranging from. I discovered a paper written by Shannon McCarty about this subject. I'm going to focus on landing forces instead of launching based on personal experience which anecdotally tells me that being the surface a cat leaps from, for instance, when a can of cat food is suddenly opened downstairs while kitty is peacefully curled up on my chest, is much less painful than being the surface on which a cat lands on from a height, like that one time I lived in a small studio and the cat tree was close enough for the cat to jump down onto the bed and subsequently directly onto my sleeping, prone, unsuspecting self. Cats can survive falls from extreme heights because they spread themselves out and create drag. The top answer references the fact that cats, as a living thing, actively mitigate the force they exert during landing in order to protect themselves. Here's my attempt at answering this problem:įirst, you are not the only cat owner who has asked this question. I feel like this would make a good Randall Monroe What If? blog.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |