HowTo Network emblem How To: Gaming THE HOW TO CO. — EDITION 10
EXHIBIT LABEL — DISPLAY & CARE SHELF 04 · CASE 01

Shelves & Cases that show instead of store.

A case is two numbers, and the one that decides everything is invisible at the point of purchase: how many moves stand between your hand and the piece.

SPAN
Double it and the sag ×8
A DOOR
Costs two moves, every time
THE BACK ROW
71 mm of riser per 400 up

Depth, closure, height — in that order.

THE INTRODUCTION

Three decisions, and only the first one is cheap to change afterwards. Everything a display case does well or badly it was already doing on the day you measured the wall.

Start with depth, because depth is the decision that quietly sets how much of the collection you will ever look at. A 180 mm figure standing on the front edge of a 300 mm deck leaves room for a second row, and a second row is a real gain — roughly a third more pieces on the same frontage. On a 450 mm deck it leaves room for a third row that nobody will ever see. Depth past the second row is storage. If the wall is only going to hold one unit, buy the shallower one and buy two of them.

Then the shelf itself, which is the part people trust and should not. A deck bends under load in proportion to the cube of its span: put the same total weight on a shelf twice as long and it sags eight times as far. That is why a 900 mm span of 18 mm melamine-faced board holds a row of figures for a year and then holds a visible smile in the middle of it, and why the fix is almost never a thicker board. Bring the supports in, or glue a 20 mm lipping along the front edge — a strip on edge does far more for stiffness than the same timber laid flat.

Glass shelves are the ones to check rather than assume. Four millimetre float glass weighs 10 kg for every square metre of it before anything is put on top, and it is annealed, which means that when it does go it goes into blades. Six millimetre toughened, supported at both ends over a short span, is the honest minimum for anything you would be upset to sweep up. Acrylic is a third of the weight and none of the stiffness — a 3 mm acrylic deck at 800 mm will bow under its own contents in a warm room, and it holds a static charge that pulls dust onto it faster than the glass beside it.

Closure is the decision the drawing below is about. Every door you add buys a deck that stays clean and charges you the same toll on every visit: a latch, a swing, and only then the reach. One move becomes three. That sounds trivial written down and is not — it is the difference between a collection you rearrange on a Tuesday evening and one you photograph twice a year. Be honest about which of those you are, and buy the case that matches the honest answer rather than the flattering one.

Height comes last because it is the one that ambushes people. A deck below your eye line shows its back row for free; a deck above it hides the back row behind the front one, and the riser needed to bring it back grows at a fixed rate the higher you go. Above your own eyes the riser ends up taller than the figures standing on it, which is the point at which the top of a unit stops being display and becomes a shelf you own.

THE RISER · THE CHEAPEST THING ON THE SHELF, AND THE ONE THAT DOES THE SHOWING

Three ways to stand a collection up.

THE DETAIL

The same collection, offered three pieces of furniture, drawn to one scale on one floor with an eye line at 1550 mm across all three. Under each unit are the only three numbers worth comparing at the point of purchase: the run of deck edge it gives you, the floor it takes to give it, and the number of separate moves between your hand and a piece standing on it. Read them together and the trade is unmissable — every deck closed against dust costs exactly two more moves, and the unit that takes no floor at all pays for it in frontage and in height.

THREE WAYS TO STAND A COLLECTION UP · FRONT ELEVATION DISPLAY & CARE · SHELF 04 · CASE 01 EYE LINE · 1550 MM ABOVE THE FLOOR SETTLED DUST ONE MOVE BETWEEN HAND AND PIECE ALL THREE AT ONE SCALE 1800 1600 700 1200 0 500 1000 1500 2000 MM OPEN FRONT · NOTHING IN THE WAY GLASS DOOR · LATCH · SWING BACK ROW, RAISED TOP DECK STANDS ABOVE THE EYE LINE NO FLOOR TAKEN FROM HERE, THE SECOND ROW IS A GUESS 01 · OPEN SHELF 900 × 1800 × 300 MM · 5 DECKS BOOKCASE DEPTH · NO FRONT FRONTAGE 4.5 M OF EDGE FLOOR TAKEN 0.27 M² DUST REACHES EVERY DECK · 5 OF 5 TO THE PIECE 1 MOVE 02 · GLASS CASE 800 × 1600 × 400 MM · 4 DECKS GLAZED FRONT · SEALED BACK FRONTAGE 3.2 M OF EDGE FLOOR TAKEN 0.32 M² DUST REACHES THE TOP ONLY TO THE PIECE 3 MOVES 03 · WALL CABINET 800 × 700 × 180 MM · 3 DECKS HUNG · TAKES NO FLOOR FRONTAGE 2.4 M OF EDGE FLOOR TAKEN NONE · ON THE WALL DUST REACHES THE TOP ONLY TO THE PIECE 3 MOVES EVERY DECK YOU CLOSE AGAINST DUST COSTS TWO MORE MOVES DIMENSIONS IN MM
THREE UNITS, ONE SCALE CASE 01 01 · OPEN SHELF 900 × 1800 × 300 MM · 5 DECKS EYE LINE 1550 1800 OPEN FRONT DUST ON EVERY DECK FRONTAGE 4.5 M OF EDGE FLOOR TAKEN 0.27 M² DUST REACHES EVERY DECK · 5 OF 5 TO THE PIECE 1 MOVE 02 · GLASS CASE 800 × 1600 × 400 MM · 4 DECKS EYE LINE 1550 1600 GLASS DOOR BACK ROW RAISED FRONTAGE 3.2 M OF EDGE FLOOR TAKEN 0.32 M² DUST REACHES THE TOP ONLY TO THE PIECE 3 MOVES 03 · WALL CABINET 800 × 700 × 180 MM · 3 DECKS EYE LINE 1550 700 1200 HUNG AT 1200 TOP DECK OVER EYE NO FLOOR TAKEN FRONTAGE 2.4 M OF EDGE FLOOR TAKEN NONE · ON THE WALL DUST REACHES THE TOP ONLY TO THE PIECE 3 MOVES CLOSE A DECK AGAINST DUST · PAY TWO MORE MOVES

The back row, and what it costs to see it.

THE RISER

A riser is not a decoration and it is not a guess. Stand 900 mm back from the shelf with your eyes at 1550 mm, and the line that grazes the top of the front figure is the line the back one has to be lifted to. Everything below is that line, answered for five decks up one wall.

ONE SIGHTLINE, WORKED OUT DECK AT 1600 EYE · 1550 STANDOFF 900 221 RISER BACK ROW 160 IN
FIGURE 180 MM · BACK ROW 160 MM IN · STANDOFF 900 MM
RISER = FIGURE + OFFSET × (FIGURE − EYE ABOVE DECK) ÷ STANDOFF
DECK HEIGHT 0100200300 RISER

  1. 2000 MM

    292MM RISER

  2. 1600 MM

    221MM RISER

  3. EYE LINE · 1550 MMBELOW HERE THE BACK ROW SHOWS ITSELF

  4. 1200 MM

    150MM RISER

  5. 800 MM

    79MM RISER

  6. 400 MM

    8MM RISER

The rate is 71 mm of riser for every 400 mm you go up the wall, and it does not care how tall the figures are — it is the ratio of the back row’s offset to how far back you stand, and nothing else. Which is why the top deck is the one to watch: at 2000 mm the riser has to be 292 mm, taller than the 180 mm figure standing on it. That is the line marked through every bar above, and the deck that crosses it is the deck where a second row stops paying for itself.

What the deck is actually holding.

MATERIAL & SPAN

Two questions, and the second one is arithmetic. What the deck is made of decides how it fails; how far it reaches between supports decides when.

THE DECK GOES IN LAST · AND IT IS THE ONLY PART THAT CARRIES ANYTHING

Float glass, 4 mm

10.0 KG PER M², BEFORE ANYTHING STANDS ON IT

CLARITY
The best of the three, and it stays that way — glass does not haze with age or with cleaning.
WHEN IT FAILS
Annealed, so it breaks into blades. Fine for a door you never lean on, wrong for a deck over a plinth.
THE CATCH
Heavy enough that four decks change what the carcase has to be screwed into.

Toughened, 6 mm

15.0 KG PER M², AND THE ONE TO BUY

CLARITY
The same as float, with a faint green edge you only see from the side.
WHEN IT FAILS
Into blunt granules, all at once. It cannot be cut or drilled afterwards, so order it finished.
THE CATCH
Half again the weight of 4 mm float, and it wants support at both ends, not brackets in the middle.

Acrylic, 3 mm

3.6 KG PER M², AND NONE OF THE STIFFNESS

CLARITY
Excellent new. It scratches from dusting alone, and a year of dry cloths reads as a haze.
WHEN IT FAILS
It does not break, it bows — slowly, warm, under its own contents, and it does not come back.
THE CATCH
It holds a static charge, so it collects dust faster than the glass standing next to it.

×1

450 MM SPAN

Two supports close in. Almost anything holds this: chipboard, 4 mm glass, acrylic.

×2.4

600 MM SPAN

A third longer, and it already bends more than twice as far under the same total load.

×8

900 MM SPAN

Twice the reach, eight times the sag. Bring the supports in or lip the front edge — a thicker board is the expensive way round.

Reads for this case.

5 PIECES · IN THE ARCHIVE

The archive behind this label. Titles are set and the pieces are being written — nothing here links yet, because a label pointing at an empty case is worse than a label that says wait.

01

How to work out what a shelf span will actually hold

The cube rule, where to put the supports, and the lipping that beats a thicker board.

BY POPPY · 7 MIN

02

How to choose between glass, acrylic and open air

Weight per square metre, how each one fails, and the static charge nobody mentions.

BY IRIS · 6 MIN

03

How to set riser heights so the back row reads

One sightline, five decks, and the height at which a second row stops paying for itself.

BY POPPY · 5 MIN

04

How to add a door to a unit that never had one

Hinges, seals and magnetic catches, and what the two extra moves cost you in practice.

BY IRIS · 6 MIN

05

How to plan a wall so the collection reads as one piece

Deck pitch, sightlines and the run of frontage that makes seven units look deliberate.

BY POPPY · 8 MIN

THE REST OF THIS SHELF

Lighting & LED VISIT →Dust & UV Protection VISIT →

BACK TO DISPLAY & CARE →

Where this case sits.

SHELF 04 · CASE 01 / 03 · SHELVES & CASES

01 02 03 YOU ARE HERE 04 05 06 07 DISPLAY & CARE. SHELVES & CASES · LED · DUST & UV CASE 01 / 03 — YOU ARE READING THIS ONE
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 DISPLAY & CARE. SHELVES & CASES · LED · DUST & UV

Every chapter in this region is a bay on this wall. Bay 04 is Display & Care, and this page is the first of the three cases standing inside it — the furniture, chosen before there is anything to light or to keep the dust off. Back to the wall to walk the rest.