Building a display wall for cons

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I'm sure this has been covered a dozen times on here but I used Mr Searchy, but to no avail. Can someone direct me to How-To's, plans, detailed photos, or just general ideas? I started back on the con circuit last month and am currently borrowing a friend's display and need to get one of my own.

Thanks in advance!

The display we use for our shows is from Home depot. it is metal, and easily put together and held in place with plastic ties. the Shelves can be adjusted in height depending on whether you want to display CGC slabs or raw books. The Rack in the pics below is 4 racks wide ( 20 feet )

Also a pic in Page 3 of this thread:

http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=5641099&fpart=1

Is that a Spider-Man Final Chapter issue? What is that doing at a Con?

 

 

Is that a Spider-Man Final Chapter issue? What is that doing at a Con?

Sure don't want it at home!

SOLD!

The display we use for our shows is from Home depot. it is metal, and easily put together and held in place with plastic ties. the Shelves can be adjusted in height depending on whether you want to display CGC slabs or raw books. The Rack in the pics below is 4 racks wide ( 20 feet )

 

 

Also a pic in Page 3 of this thread:

http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=5641099&fpart=1

 

 

 

I dig it. What is roughly the cost of a single 5ft section with shelves?

 

 

Is that a Spider-Man Final Chapter issue? What is that doing at a Con?

 

Sure don't want it at home!

SOLD!

I still have buyers remorse from buying it of the rack in 99

One word of caution: Those Home Depot shelves DO get heavy though.

And I used zip ties to tie them too and you need to carry around a nice pair of snips to cut them off at the end of the convention. I had to tie them to the top of my SUV too. (Two racks side by side = a lot of shelves.)

It's like having a notebook computer. You'll start out with a heavy one... But at some point, you'll discover that weight is an issue.

One word of caution: Those Home Depot shelves DO get heavy though.

 

And I used zip ties to tie them too and you need to carry around a nice pair of snips to cut them off at the end of the convention. I had to tie them to the top of my SUV too. (Two racks side by side = a lot of shelves.)

 

It's like having a notebook computer. You'll start out with a heavy one... But at some point, you'll discover that weight is an issue.

Thanks, though I generally only have one table, thus needing only one section.

 

 

Is that a Spider-Man Final Chapter issue? What is that doing at a Con?

 

Sure don't want it at home!

SOLD!

 

I still have buyers remorse from buying it of the rack in 99

you can give it away to kids or homeless

I've experimented with a few different designs for a home display and finally landed on one that's stable, easy to build (I'm notoriously unmotivated and untalented when it comes to building things) and reasonably inexpensive (about $100). Mine uses 8ft long shelves but a boardie built a smaller version with fewer 6 foot shelves that he ended up being happy with.

It should take a couple hours to put together with simple handtools, though an electriic drill/screwdriver is useful.

Basically, it consists of two sides, a front and a back. I'll give you the dimensions of mine, but you can an easily make it smaller. There are extra holes in mine because this current design evolved from an earlier less stable version.

Each side is an "A" frame made of two 2"x2"s, each 7' 6" high. I drill holes in each 2x2 about 3/4" from the top. An extra long bolt with washer is run through the hole of one 2x2, then I put in a washer, then it's run through the second 2x2 and secured with a washer and wing nut. Wing nuts are essential for easy assembly/disassembly.

I did not end up creating a cross brace (that would form the middle dash of the A) but if you'll look closely there are two thin metal strips lying on the carpet at the right base of that I can use for that. I found these strips wandering through Home Depot looking at various metal strips -- these already had holes drilled in them. If the stand were placed on a slick floor (e.g. hard wood) you'll want the braces. On carpet, my stand isn't going anywhere.

The back of the of the stand consists of two 1"x4"s that are each 6 feet long. The bottom one is are attached to the inside bottom of the back leg of each A frame using two long bolts, washers and wing nuts. (I use one size of bolt for everything so these are the same as used above for the A frame.) The top 1x4 is attached to the inside back of the A frame approximately 5' 6" from the ground using two bolts. These stablize the structure eliminate the need for cross bracing.

The front of the A frame is made of seven 8' standard wire closet shelves. They are mounted using plastic dry wall mounts that they sell with the shelves. You can see a close up of the dry wall mount in the third photo -- I drilled holes screwed the mounts into the front leg of the A frame. When I store the rack, I leave these mounts attached to the leg. IMPORTANT: I had to saw off the back piece from each plastic hook mount so that they would lie flat against the front of the 2"x2". That back piece is only needed for an actual dry wall mount which we are not doing.

You'll see that the bottom of the shelf slides into the hook mount while the top is secured through a plastic tie. The plastic tie is a mistake in my current design and instead the top and bottom of each shelf should slide into a plastic hook mount. (I did not leave enough room between each shelf to do this.) If you space the shelves 14" apart you'll be able to fit slabs (13") on the shelves and have room for using the plastic hook mounts. Those mounts will hold both ends of the shelf tightly making assembly a snap.

In order to prevent the books from falling over due to a gust of wind or shaking of the rack, I have strung elastic string that I picked up in the fabric section of Walmart. Ideally, you should tie each string to some sort of hook at each end so that the string can be easily removed. Otherwise, the string will lose its elasticity over time.

I don't have a truck to easily transport a complete assembled structure, so I would be transporting the pieces in a Ford Mustang (back seets do fold down).

You'll probably want to make it with 6 foot shelves as I'm not sure the 8 foot shelves will fit your car.

Rack is VERY solid -- much better than the 500 dollar Wombat-style mentioned in the General Forum thread but will still be just as easy to assemble. It will, however, be heavier.

Is assembly easy?

To assemble, therefore:

Screw in the bolts/wingnuts of the cross-piece of the A. (4 total bolts)

Screw in the top and bottom back pieces. (8 total bolts)

Place the shelves in the mounts.

Attach the elastic strings to each shelf (could be done when you load up your car)

As you can see, pretty quick and easy, especially if you label the pieces (left A, right A, bottom back piece etc)

Here's the resulting rack pennynike built

Very nice. Thanks for sharing!

Wow, that's great. THANKS!

Thanks for the instructions.  Built this for my club.  We setup at a local show this weekend and the stand worked great.

Here’s mine. No wood. Breaks down to 6 components plus shelves. No tools needed to set up or break down. One man job. All zip ties. Footprint 6’x 1.5’

Great design!

On ‎12‎/‎3‎/‎2017 at 6:04 PM, Dormian said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Great design!

Your hidden contents ......

made me look 

9 hours ago, Senormac said:

Your hidden contents ......

made me look 

I was trying to quote Junkdrawer's post but hide the content.  Epic fail!

Just a bump for some new ideas I wlll add mine in a week or two as I am building it now.