Snaking flexwatt

[Gunner253]

So I'm in the process of building my new rack. I got all the wood cut and all the supplies and such I need. I'm building an enclosed melamine rack and I plan on snaking one piece of flexwatt through the whole rack and my question is is do I need to cut slots or reliefs on the sides of the shelves? How do I run the flexwatt in between the side boards and the shelves?

[Gunner253]

No one? I'm just worried about pinching the flexwatt in between the sides and the shelves if I don't make a relief but I also don't wanna waste my time if it's unnecessary

[Sonny1318]

You could go to the different rack manufacturing websites. And hopefully they'll show enough pictures, that you can get an idea. Good luck.

[Eric Alan]

There are a few ways to do it, but here's a video that shows the most common way it's done in a PVC rack:

[kitedemon]

Cut a relief. You don't want to jam fold of pinch flex watt. Make sure you seal all the cut edges of the particle board, it out gasses phenols worse than cedars, fully encapsulated.

[MarkS]

When I built my melamine shelves I cut a section of flexwatt for each shelf and then attached the sections with lamp cord. I drilled holes in the sides of the rack for the lamp cord. You could do the same if you don't want to cut your flexwatt, but you'd have to cut a wide notch on the ends so you can feed the flexwatt through. It's also a good idea to recess the flexwatt into the shelf slightly so that the tubs aren't scraping over it all the time. (you can use a dado blade on a table saw, I just used my router and went over it several times to get the right width)

[Gunner253]

Thanks guys! That's all I needed, hopefully I'll have it done by mon or Tuesday and I can start working on getting temps right!

[kitedemon]

Just on a side note and along the same though as Mark brought up. I too have individual flex watt strips. Mine all have plugs on each end and run to a custom cord with ends at appropriate lengths. I can unplug and strip of flex watt if I need so if there is an empty shelf I can disconnect it. I also on my early deep cleaning can easily remove one flex watt and clean and replace it I can avoid doing the whole rack at once.