After much research, tinkering, and models, this support brace is installed on my wife’s free-standing Omni wall system. I’ve made several “prototypes” with different sized threading, wall mount options, and pole T-Nuts to arrive at the design I think is the strongest for the job. There was a gentleman on eBay selling a very cost reduced version, with no mounting hardware, for $35 each.
I’ve found that making these braces per the original design is very time-consuming, and the materials are more expensive than I originally thought.
The pole mounting plate and tube were welded with by a professional welder with equipment I do not have to make a solid one piece unit. The T-Nuts, which are the small flat nuts that go inside the Omni pole channel to hold the support brace firmly to the pole, are easily and quickly ground to size on any type of grinder.
The T-Nut for Omni is not a standard size and the smallest T-Nut commercially available must be ground down to fit inside the grove of the Omni pole.
To date (June 2014), these have done well on my wife’s Omni, but we haven’t (knock on wood) had an earthquake to put them through the ultimate test. I’ve decided that these supports are very time, work, and material expensive to produce in any volume, and if I make any more, I’ll just post them on eBay (it won’t be in 2014). Thanks for your kind interest and comments.
Wow! I’m continually impressed by the quality of your work. They really look perfect.
It’s unfortunate that they’re such a pain in the butt to make :/ Obviously, I would love for this to be something that turns out to be produceable and purchasable. but I understand that it just might not be worth the time for you. A system requires quite a few of these to make it usable – I’m not sure if you read this in the instructions, but each pole is supposed to have two of these (one near the top, and one near the bottom). It adds up pretty quickly, I realize.
Anyway, I look forward to hearing the results of your tests, and whether or not this turns out to be a feasible thing to produce. Again, no pressure! You’ve got to do what’s best for you.
Hello. I just got an Onmi two pole unit from my Mom who worked at Liebermans in Lansing Mi. George Nelson designed the interior of the store if the info I was told is correct.
This small unit has the cabinet/desk with the Bakelite hangers. They are all there and have been holding that heavy desk up since I was young. I’ve not put it together as the poles are too short for our home and now I’m am wary of these hangers giving out. Oddly they sound like metal when they have bumped together. The rest of the unit is a shelf/drawer unit and two shelves which create space for a pair of sliding by pass doors, a cabinet. One side of this does not have the narrow black metal rail to put the side wall into. Would you have a lead for this piece? Also how did your replacement hangers work out?
Many thanks Ann
Hi Ann,
What a nice story about your Omni. I’ve had my replacement brackets holding up my wife’s loaded Omni cabinet for about a year and everything has been fine. I’m going to take them down this month to inspect them closely to see if there are any stress points on the wood or fasteners.
The only place I’ve found to find Omni parts is on eBay and Craigslist. You can do a Craigslist search for the entire country instead of your local area and you’ll have a better chance of finding things.
Just found your site, I too have an Omni wall unit with ceilings that are too high. I like what you did with the mounting brackets, do you by any chance sell those to the public. If so, what would be the cost, I would need 4 of them. Thank you so much for your time.
Hi, update to my two pole unit. I was missing one extension piece with its spring as my ceiling is too tall. My father had extended the polls already using PCV pipe, which was an electical pipe size. He had wedged one end of the pole into the pipe. It was firmly embedded so I mounted that end down which actually protects the hardware floor. In the end I made one extension piece out of an aluminum pipe, a spring and washers. I purchased all of these at a local hardware. The truly time consuming part was cutting the four slots for the tension spring/poll to function. Once done I spray painted it black to match the other.
Works very well and is a dead on match to the original of which I only had one.
Ann
Very creative solution Ann! For readers needing the original sized extension poles this is an excellent solution. If the length needed is much longer, I’d recommend using aluminum tube, as PVC tends to bend with long lengths. Thanks again Ann! 8-))
Thank you. The PVC pieces my dad added are maybe 4-5″ long and now act like cuffs.
The aluminum pole I got and cut works at the top with the spring and the rubber pad.
Mom had two of these but one was short the other long. I needed two of the long ones. Together with Dad’s cuffs the poles become long enough to have plenty of tension to stay put and hold everything in place.
Ann
Does anyone know of source for the aluminum pole top springs and rubber pad. In a recent move 4 went missing and I have not been able to find any. Any information is greatly appreciated.
Retrofit, me again. I’m taking my Omni down to inspect the bakalite hooks. I’m nervous they are so old they’ll fail. Do you have any of these wall mount secure support braces available for sale?
Thanks much