"blueman" wrote in message

Also, I was thinking that I could further reinforce the holes by
"painting" the holes first with a low viscosity epoxy (the type that
is used as a wood hardener) and then inserting the pins. This should
hopefully have the dual effect of hardening the wood surrounding the
hole and also anchoring the sleeve to the hole so that it spreads the
transferred weight more broadly to the surrounding wood.

Does the above sound like a good idea?

I haven't been following the bulk of this thread where you've indicated how
much weight you're going to be putting on these shelves, but to be honest,
what you're proposing sounds a little like overkill. If using pins with
sleeves still sounds like it's going to fail on you, then you're not using a
proper support system for the weight you have in mind.