by RichD » Fri Sep 13, 2013 6:02 pm
My house has studs on 16 inch centers. How far apart the brackets need to be depends on how much weight you expect the shelves to hold and what the shelves are made of. If the shelves will be MDF that material can sag under its own weight and I would put the brackets 16 inches apart. At work we had oak shelves with that type of bracket, the ones that were anchored in sheetrock fell when books were piled on them. If the shelves will be made of something stiffer than MDF and you are only going to put slot cars on them I would expect that having the brackets 32 inches apart would be good enough.