Concerning vertical and horizontal storage, I much prefer vertical when sifting through the stack, and I will go through the whole stack.
But I have to sift through the whole stack because most of the boards are bowed when checked.
When the boards are stored horizontal, like those which are at Clarke's, I find that a majority of the boards are flat when checked.
Typically however the bow is slight and not a problem so I tend to go for the wood at the place with the best price.
Now Clarke's absolutely has the height to to store lumber vertically but stores the majority same length/width boards laying horizontally. The picked over/shorter pieces of wood tend to be stored vertically in another warehouse.
My observation is not scientific and may be more of a a geological oddity, ;~). If storing wood flat to prevent it from bowing is not Clarke's goal it certainly makes inventorying/verifying stock levels a way way more accurate and easier method of verifying what is on hand.
In general, fair observations...my take is that there is obviously advantage in the vertical storage for selection from the purely mechanical arrangement of being able to see more w/ less moving (maybe ideal is the moving/rotating hanging rack a la the dry cleaners/slaughter house :) ). But, there's an _IF_ (the proverbial "big if") there imo that it's only of marginal help at best if the stock has yet to have been surfaced sufficiently at least to visualize grain well.
In my case at hand, very little is surfaced at all and given that I do work at a hit 'n miss rate, much of what have may be on hand for quite a long time (as in I bought the maple and SYP mentioned as stock when first needed the SYP for some of the barn restore in '05 or so I think it was but things intervened and it's been since then that I've had the opportunity to get back. Being as it's stored in that old barn and this is W KS, even stacked w/ a tarp over it it gets dirty and is therefore not easy to judge. So, it wouldn't be any real advantage in my case to have it surfaced; it just allows the surface to weather faster. As a side note the maple was purchased because it was simpler to get both on same trip than make a second trip and while I wanted clear 5/4 white pine for window frame stock it was in such high demand at the time I settled for the soft maple instead.
Anyway, I do think the comment regarding the tendency of material (particularly long material) to bow when stored vertically is valid and therefore it also makes sense to store that way when there's a fairly high turnover rate as one expects from a full-time shop or outlet. I don't think it's the ticket here being's I'm a farmer who does the w-working as the mood hits and time allows (altho I've gotten more done last 3 months than had in the previous 5 years, that may change again at any time depending on unforeseen things occurring that change priorities outside the mandatory day-to-day...
Anyway, was just wondering if anybody here had had any really, really clever breakthroughs or other unique ideas...I puzzled over the quandary again yesterday and think I've about decided to just do the cantilevered arms off the columns similar to so many others adding a couple additional columns between the existing ones to shorten the span between arms. There's a whole passel of old 3/4" ply stripped from the forms used to pour the feed bunks--I think I'll lay a floor of it down first w/ a longitudinal spine between the arms as a little additional sag prevention/load distribution...
Appreciate the thoughts; anybody know of spare freight elevator cheap let me know--I keep thinking how cool it would be to have the whole mow as shop area...I keep a watch out for a cheap forklift mast/hydraulics. Fella' in town has the elevator from the old hospital in a nearby town in his house--that was just before we came back from TN so missed out on that opportunity; it would have been about right as it's large enough for two gurneys...he's the local salvage man/house mover/general character and is always doing such sort of thing most would never think of.
IME and observation (not scientific either ;) ), storing any lumber flat gives the seller a better chance that, if and when it bows, it does so after the customer has paid for it.
Storing hardwoods vertically, and without pressure from above and below causing it to (temporarily?) stay flat, gives the customer a better chance of choosing a board that will stay that way. :)
AAMOF, experienced that exact scenario Tuesday at Clark's when buying walnut.
Clarks, unlike Hardwood Products, only stores their S2S1E hardwoods vertically. The rest, including all dimensioned, seems to be uniformly stored horizontally.
(I'll be heading back to Clarks within the hour to check over their "shop plywood" bin ... don't need $125 worth of 3/4" walnut ply and hoping they have a piece that will fit the bill.)
Valid point. Perhaps we should make an arrangement such that we not pay for wood/lumber until after it has been used in a project, to prevent it from bowing before we pay for it. :~)
My assumption was that the weight of the board would set the bow but I will say that when I find the flat ones that are stored vertically that they stay that way.
Probably too late now, I think resawing some of that Arkansas post material and gluing up for a top for the table would be cool, voids, checks, cracks and all. Fill the voids with black epoxy.
But considering for whom you are building this, it might not be quite perfect enough. ;~)
Other than the drag chain ones (and precious few of them out here) I've never seen one in this area so they're surely hiding well...
Possibly on the scissor lift; what looking I've done for equivalent weight capacity even the near-salvage-only have been quite a bit more dear than I wanted to give...one of the problems is that unlike Iggy's locale, this is very sparse population area w/ essentially no manufacturing so there's very little local stuff around except oil patch that is just too heavy...
I have Sheet steel that weigh several hundred pounds a sheet. They bow and their 3/8 or 1/2" thick!
Gravity is a killer.
Have a double width stack or better yet - have a roll up cart that you can slide sheets onto it, take the one you want and move them back on the stack. Store the cart by the other goods.
FWIW, it is easy - and cheap - to make rollers from PVC pipe. I use 2"...
Cut to length
Cut out two plywood plugs. I use a drill press and make them slightly too big; I then taper them
Tap plugs into pipe ends, secure with a couple of small, flat head screws into countersunk holes.
Purely optional but I bush the center holes in the plugs with a little piece of copper pipe. I don't recall the size but the interior of the pipe is perfect for 1/4" bolts.
1/4" pipe? LOL. I'll certainly give your suggestion some consideration.
Since my replying, I've thought: The guy I got the rollers from may have moved all that "scrap stuff", he had near his barn, to a back field. The guy collected lots of discorded/broken stuff, to the chagrin of his wife (a nd others), and he isn't one to readily get rid of "good" scrap, so there m ay be rollers still available. I think I'll give him a visit. If any are available, a few beers should do it... and a sitting through his tome of st ories.
Making the plywood solid piece w/ a gusset in the corner is the strongest, of course, in resisting the moment arm torque. The pure vertical load isn't much difficulty in resisting; it's the bending moment that's harder.
I had just made them so large before out of uncertainty they were a pita. One could, of course, try to do some calculating... :)
But, I went back to the scrap iron pile yesterday and dug a little more
-- looks like I've got enough pieces of various angle of at least 2x2 to make two levels long enough to have roughly 2-ft on both sides of the one column--think that's what I'll do--just lag them into the columns. If'en the spacing between bolt locations isn't enough to have enough torque resistance I can add a gusset plate as needed...
Appreciate everybody's input...I'll try to post some pictures of the old barn redo here at some point...I didn't have a camera w/ a USB connection at the time we did the major restoration work so it was a pita to do then...
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