Storing wood

[George]

I have a woodworking shop that I also let my wife occassionally park her car in. Needless to say, space is tight. Anyway, my request is to find some creative ways to store wood. I have some full 8-10 foot long 5-8" boards, some 4-6 foot and a bunch of smaller boards, that are mostly left overs from other projects, but that I know the second I throw a piece out, I will need that exact size in another project. In the past, I have laid them all flat on some 12" shelves. The problem is when you want a board on the bottom, you have to unload the whole shelf, which RPMO. So, I am thinking of two solutions.

1) store the wood on end. Is there and advantage or disadvantage to storing wood on end vs. flat? 2) have more shelves, maybe adjustable, so I would have only 1-3 boards high laying flat on a horizontal shelf.

Any good plans or ideas regarding this topic will be appreciated.

George

[patrick conroy]

We get both our cars in the shop. The wood storage is on my side, to be fair. I put mine up high, above the door-opening, head-hitting height. Yeah, more work to get it down.

I've been told, that you risk warping if you stack lumber on end. Oddly enough, Paxton's front-end displays here have everything stacked vertically. My lumber rack is 1/2" galvanized pipe, 12" long, drilled into every other stud at a 5* angle.

[Mark L.]

I keep a fair amount of lumber hanging in the garage from the rafters. I just have leftover 2 x 12's every few feet that are suspended from the rafters by chains. If you put enough of these up, you may not need to stack the wood so deeply anymore. Mark L.

George wrote: snip

[Charlie Self]

Patrick Conroy responds:

You do risk warping, but the risk depends on conditions ranging from the angle of the stack to the humidity levels and heat levels. You'll probably note that Paxton, and other large wood supplies, stack their retail store wood on end. If you get into the warehouse you'll see the same kind of stacking you might see in a furniture manufacturer's wood warehouse: flat. The shorter term vertical stack should be harmless. Over a longer term, it isn't a world beater of an idea. But I have no idea what the "longer term" is. I've got some oak and sycamore that has been stacked on end for upwards of two years, with no problems.

Charlie Self "A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers." H. L. Mencken

[BruceR]

Interesting enough David Marks stores a lot of his wood on end (see the wood selection episode). I'm paranoid and store flat, but with my ever increasing stash I might switch some of it to verticle storage.

-Bruce

[Jana]

Hi Guys, You actually want your kiln dried lumber dead piled. You only sticker it when your lumber is air dried or in the process. You don't want the air flow if it's kiln dried. Use jacket boards you don't care about on the bottom layer and on top. Jana

[BruceR]

Jana, I assume an exception to this would be when I buy a bunch of KD lumber that I plan to build with, I should sticker it so the moisture level will euqalize with my shop air (for several months) before dead piling?

-Bruce

Jana wrote:

[George]

Depends on the season, but a week or two should do for 4/4 stock.

You also want the wood flat stacked for fire protection reasons. Less surfaces (actually edges) with easy access to oxygen means less fire danger.

[Jana]

I wouldn't. You don't want it picking up moisture at all. It wouldn't take that long to acclimate. It'll do it on it's own while you're working on your project. It's not really that touchy of a situation...I mean, is the shop the same as the house where the piece will end up? Kiln drying shrinks or sets the cells in the wood, so unless you have it piled on the garage floor or some other obvious place it would pick up a lot of moisture, it really should be just fine....Now that I'm writing, you have me thinking...My views are with our lumber that I know has been dried right and hasn't been sitting around in a warehouse or containers picking up moisture already. Jana

[BruceR]

Thanks Jana, My situation is opposit of most people. Garage^H^H^H^H^H^H err shop is at about 6% humidity when I do most projects. House will be about the same. Drying/storage conditions of the lumber I have is unknown, but usually I accumulate the stuff over a year before beginning the larger projects. I usually try to buy 5/4 rough since I usually can't decide on dimensions until I get started.

-Bruce