3/4" Plywood / Drywall Screws Question - Model Railroader Magazine

Thanks for the tips. Big Boy, thanks for the pics. Yes, the length of the shelf has a lot to do with the amount it sags (in fact, the sag is porpotional to the length cubed, as well as inversely porpotional to the thickness of the shelf cubed - which is why the reinforcement beams make such a big difference). This is why I made my shelves short, with a pretty beefy reinforcement beam.

Your shelves are holding some serious weight.

In any case, after spending a day in the garage, I can say my career of screwing wood screws into the ends of plywood has come to a close. Even with very large pilot holes (larger than I really wanted to use), I still split the wood, I'd say 1 in 5 or 6 times. That's way too much. These are industrial looking shelves, and the way I made them all the splits are hidden and not carrying load, but I know they're there!

I may experiment with driving some drywall screws into the ends of plywood just to see how those work - experimentation for future module construction.

I really like the idea of using 4x8 stock for everything - little material waste when choosing between 1 x 2, 1 x 4, 1 x 6, or a flat sheet - very cool. But, I'm also now convinced 3/4" thick plywood is way too thick for a module top for my tastes.

I may re-visit the lumber section of the local Lowe's to see how their 1x material is looking.

Something quite interesting to me is David Barrow complained about the straightness of 1x lumber, but used 2x2's for legs. I don't know about everyone else, but for me, finding a straight 2 x 2 is like finding a needle in a haystack.

Something interesting in terms of vibration of a structure: To have a very stable structure, Ideally you have a lot of mass at the base, and less and less mass towards the top of the structure. (you've never seen anyone knock over a pyramid, have you?).

This leads me to want beefy legs and a lightweight table top for my modules.