How to make honeycomb shelves

Step 1
Set your mitre saw to a cutting angle of 30 degrees and cut your length of wood into 18 equal lengths so that the long side of the finished board in 18cm long. Use sandpaper to remove any rough edges. Wipe off sanding dust.

Step 2
Use a small microfibre roller to apply Resene Quick Dry to the front and back of the boards. Fleur found it quick to line all the boards up and go over them with the roller en masse rather than individually.

Step 3
Once you have painted both side and the primer is dry, give the primer a quick sand with a fine grit sandpaper. Remove any dust with a soft dry cloth. Use a paintbrush to paint on two coats of each of your colours. Fleur used three different colours, one colour for each hexagon – Resene Lustacryl tinted to Resene Green Pea, Resene Retro and Resene St Kilda. Once the paint is dry, sand the edges to remove any paint that may have gotten on them. Wipe off sanding dust.

Step 4
Use wood glue to glue your hexagon together. Fleur found it helpful to use some masking tape to hold the edges together while the glue dried. If you are unsure of the strength of your glue and/or you want to put heavy items on your shelf, then you may want to screw or nail your corners together. If you use screws, it’s a good idea to drill a pilot hole first to help avoid the wood from splitting, and you will achieve a better finished look if you countersink the hole, use hole filler, sand the filler smooth and paint over.

Step 5
Along the exposed front edge of the shelves, use a soft cloth to rub on one coat of Resene Colorwood in Resene Teak, followed by two coats of Resene Danska Teak Oil. For the oil, apply each one coat and then let it sit for 20 minutes and wipe the excess off. Then repeat with the second coat.

Step 6
You can now glue or screw the hexagons to each other.