Central supporting strut for shelves?

[mrgoosey]

Dear all

With the help of a friend, I'm building shelves into the alcoves in my living room, one side of which will be used to store a large amount of heavy vinyl records (see pic below)

https://db.tt/9dbakYBH

We've had to mount plywood sheets to the back walls, as they were covered with dry wall plasterboard, which obviously bears no weight. We drilled through this and deep enough into the brick wall behind to make them rock solid.

I've had shelves cut to size from 18mil ply, but as they are around 130cm wide, am thinking that a supporting central strut will be neccessary to avoid bowing.

Can anyone suggest a suitable method, and the best material? The ceiling is around 2.5m high.

Thx in advance

 

[big-all]

assuming all 12"lps

i personally would go for dividers at 1/3 and 2/3rds
or use scaffold boards as the record will be supported centrally so the 3.5" overhang off the 9" boards wont matter

you will only get 6 rows off records whatever way you do it although thats going to be around 3000 lps

 

[mrgoosey]

All 12" size yes.

Did think about scaff boards but the alcove was 13" anyway, so I've had the shelves cut to size already , so definitely going with 18mm ply.

Dividers I guess make sense! Should these be just screwed in from the top and loose (held in place by vertical pressure) at bottom?

 

[big-all]

all depends on what tools you have
you can have slots about 4mm deep top and bottom
or you could stagger them by about 2"and screw from above and below
or you can use dowels or biscuits

i personally would form then into a sort off "E" shape with a shelve and 2 partitions with say 4 or 5 no10x 2" screws countersunk and piloted holding them together
if you countersink the screw head about 4 or 5mm from the surface
you can then mark the bottom off the next divider and screw in a no8x 1" screw and leave the head 4mm proud

as i say it all depends on what tools you have
and avoid batons under shelves unless above the lps to stop them leaning
or place a baton top middle and bottom to stop the record being unsupported and bowing