Wood Storage

[Swingman]

Yep, as you see below, you're right about pack rat creep.

Thought about casters when designing/building it, but my shop is so small there is no place to move it to:

[Leon]

LOL. Looks like griz is no longer carrying those. They are very HD.

[Leon]

To tell you the truth I feared that I would over load the wall itself with this system, so I also mounted a 2x4 vertically at the bottoms of the standards/rails to carry the straight down force along with 5/16" Spax lag screws. I can do pull ups between two of the brackets.

[Leon]

He does suck!

[Puckdropper]

Sonny wrote in news: [e-mail]:

No, no, it's just that I like a nice rack... Especially one that's the right size for the available space.

It's not the scraps that are causing the problem, it's that I've got layers upon layers of various sheet goods piled against a wall. Reasonably sized boards are piled against another wall. It makes it hard to get to what I need, or even to keep in mind what I have in inventory. Much of my scrap problem went away with the fire pit.

I've been thinking about wheels as well. It could then fit tight against the wall and then move out to the aisle when I need a piece. I think locking casters would be a necessity.

Puckdropper

[Mike Marlow]

Who doesn't like a nice rack?

[Spalted Walt]

Wandel's cantilevered shelves are strong and economical.

[DerbyDad03]

I did something similar in my garage for storing Soap Box Derby cars.

The thing I did differently was to use 45° 2x4 supports from the front of the 3' deep shelves back to the studs. I then screwed short pieces of horizontal 2x4's to the insides of the diagonals (perpendicular to the wall) and added a ~18" deep shelf under each 3' shelf.

I had 4 sets of these (2 up, 2 across) on the side wall of my garage. I could put a Derby car on each upper shelf and boxes of wheels, helmets and other Derby supplies on the lower shelves. It made it easy to keep the gear associated with each car right with each car.

These days the 3 remaining sets hold all sorts of miscellaneous garage stuff. I have no clue where all that stuff was stored when the garage was full of Derby cars. I certainly don't have any free space now that the cars are gone. ;-)

[dadiOH]

If you have the space, a separate container for sheet goods is worth while. Mine is against one wall, perpendicular to the lumber rack. It has casters so I can rotate it out for access if need be.

Both are handy; however, I felt a third need...someplace to put milled pieces before assembly. In the past, they were all over everywhere; now they reside on a wheeled rack which is about 60" tall, 48" wide and 20"+- deep. Works for me :)

[Spalted Walt]

[Leon]

A word about storage shelves for scraps and whole boards.

I have 5 rows of shelves, with a 9' ceiling, and through the years have learned to leave the bottom shelf empty to receive new project wood.

I have learned to put the scrap pieces on the top shelf and large heavy boards on the lower shelves. This does not sound right but it is much easier to place and remove scrap pieces when you are standing on a ladder than it is to do the same with long heavy boards.

Resist the temptation to place or store anything other than wood on your wood rack.

[Brewster]

gave me better access to the wood and more storage per square foot.

I wish I could go vertical (9.5 foot ceilings), but 90% of my boards are

10', 12' and 16'. I made a rack system outside, behind the shop, long enough to hold the 16's. Two tiers, 4' deep with 3"x1/4" "C" channel cross supports on 4' centers. The outside is covered with corrugated roofing takeoffs from reroofing the shop. Being on the south side, it gets quite warm (solar kiln?), but holds an a$$ load of wood (several 1000 bf). The cross supports are bolted to 2"x2" vertical steel supports on each end, sunk into concrete piers.

Problems are that the board I want is always on the bottom and the squirrels are impossible. The 4' spacing has never been a problem with warping, etc. The vertical supports mean I only have access from the end so I label each board with species and length. Lots of improvements could be made, but at least it is no longer stacked up on the shop floor

8^).

Next would be a shed, probably 12' high, where the 'shorter' stuff could be vertical (the only way to do it right!)

-BR

[Leon]

How often do you need for a board that to be over 8' or 9' long? You can cut them down to that length now. ;~)

[dpb]

On 10/01/2016 9:31 AM, Leon wrote: ...

...

And grain pattern-matching for a specific project out of them has just gone down the drain... :( After that, you're limited to what those lengths allow which may or may not, actually make the best presentation/use of the material.

[Leon]

Well there is that. ;~) Unless you cut out the grain patterns now.

[dpb]

And you propose to know where the center of the drawer is going to be in that sideboard commission you've yet to receive exactly how, now???

[Leon]

Great points and I used to save pieces for that very fact. But the majority of the work I do depends more on the design vs. particular grain in the wood. I had the dilemma that the OP is talking about. I finally made the decision to not collect the odd pieces for what might or might not happen in the future. FWIW I still have 90% of those special boards because no project has been worthy. LOL Anyway I no longer look for pieces to keep for a possible future project and simply buy as needed these days and if I need a nice piece I cull through my suppliers pile.

On a side note, the pantry cabinet I built for our home about 5 years ago has 22 small drawers and are mated in pairs. The grain is matched for the pairs. At eye level a pair of those drawers have grain that looks like the Liberty bell. No one notices that.

[Sonny]

Well, you should have strived for the Lone Star look....

Or the Long Horn look. Turn the drawers upside down and you'll see the Long Horn's head.

Sonny

[Ed Pawlowski]

Took me a couple of seconds to find it, but that is because the crack in the center seems a bit out of scale.

[woodchucker]

I wish I had 9.5 foot cielings, I would do vertical storage.

I would not leave my wood outside, there's too many chances that the bugs will set up a home, or the outside moisture becomes an issue.

It's fine for construction grade lumber, but for lumber to be used for furniture, it's asking for trouble. You would have to acclimate it quite a bit longer than an indoor location. I realize many have garage shops, and the same moisture exists both outdoors and in the garage, but I would rather store it in doors.

Just my opinion.