Stock racks...what do you use?

[Hawkeye]

Since I'm still a couple of months away from getting back into my house/shop, I'm looking at all of the suggestions. This is the perfect chance to set up a good storage system for stock.

One thing that came to mind is the rotating rack that Home Depot uses for 6' metal stock. That might allow easy access with a smaller footprint. Loops of light chain across each section would hold the pieces in while allowing easy removal.

For long stock, I had a pair of inverted T-shaped brackets that I welded up. I'm sure they threw them away, but I can make some new ones very easily. They were screwed to a couple of joists about 5' apart, giving two sections on which to lay long stock. Anything just over 5' long, up to 10' or so could hang there, just below the joists.

Good thread. Thanks, Ken.

[Roadracer_Al]

I have a couple of stock racks, mostly for long stuff. One is a series of "U" shaped frames of the same size nailed to the exposed ceiling joists above my lathe. Since it's nailed, I don't put heavy stuff in it.

For larger, heavy stock, I made some much burlier racks. They're a "Y" shape, minus one branch of the "Y", with plywood shear member glued and screwed to the frame. The frame is lag bolted to the studs. They're mounted above head-height on the long wall of the garage -- very convenient for bringing stock in: just open the garage door, and walk straight in and deposit the pieces on the rack. Now, don't think I'm putting 20' sticks of 3" stainless bar on this rack, however. That would end in tears.

For short drops, I have the ubiquitous scrap bins. I made up some real stout plywood boxes about 14 wide x 20 long x 12 deep. They have corner blocks, and are glued & screwed together. One each for steel, aluminum and red metals. Honestly, they're too damn big because I can't move it if they're even half full. They were designed to stack, but you know how that goes, so they take up 3x more space than they should.

I need to build a bookshelf in my shop for books & stereo equipment, maybe I'll make a bunch of smaller scrap boxes while I'm in woodworking mode.

[EdK]

I fixed the rotated drawing for you Ken and attached it to your first post.

Ed

[Dr Stan]

The best IMHO stock racks I've ever seen or used were cantilever free standing. I've looked on-line for an example, but came up empty. Therefore I'll try to describe them. Just remember I'm relying on memory.



Before the arms are welded on they look like an obelisk which about 2' sq on the bottom and about 1' sq at the top and around 7 or 8 ft tall made from 1 ½ X 1 ½ X ¼ angle iron. Each side also had 2” wide reinforcement straps at the bottom, about one third of the way up, about two thirds of the way up, and at the top.  All four sides of the obelisk/core were identical at this stage.


Support arms were added starting at one foot from the floor and at one foot spacing up the rack. The bottom arm was 4' long centered on the rack with each arm decreasing in length as they went up. The bottom third was made from 1 ½ X 1 ½ X ¼ angle, the middle third 1 ¼ X 1 ¼ X 3/16 angle, and the top 1/3[sup]rd[/sup] from 1 X 1 X 1/8[sup]th[/sup] angle. The arms were on opposite sides which allowed for the storage of shorter material. Each arm was cut, bent and welded about 6” from each end to create a 30 degree upward bend to help keep the material on the rack.


They were used in pairs set probably 8 or more feet apart, probably more. They sure held a bunch of material starting with the largest at the bottom. However they also took up a lot of real estate. They were 4' wide and one needed 18” of space on each side to allow for access. So if one had 20' material you would need an area 7 ft wide X 20 ft long dedicated to material storage.


I'll probably end up making a rack similar to Pixman's as I do not have the room to dedicate that much space to material storage. However if one had a lot of material and the space for it these racks worked very well.

[Mayhem]

Made a start on mine yesterday.  I'm out of action for several days, so will have to finish it off once I'm back on deck.  Only a few more lengths of angle to spot weld into place and then I can zip around and finish the welding.  Once done it will get a lick of paint.

     

Ken's one is made using 1-1/2" x 1-1/2" angle, which my supplier didn't have, so I used 2"x2"

[EdK]

That looks like a good welding practice project.  

Time to take stock of my angle iron inventory.

Ed

[PixMan]

Wow, that's looking NICE!!

[Mayhem]

Thanks Ken - I find jobs like this easy and a nice change after having a part cock in the lathe earlier in day trashing several hours of work. Having good plans also helped.

Only problem now is that my mate wants me to make him one!

[DaveH]

Looks good Darren  
If I may suggest a colour perhaps pink - will go with your walls      
 
DaveH

[PixMan]

Other than the use of the larger (better, stronger) 2" angle iron, the only difference I see between that one and mine is the angle iron across the forward side of each shelf. If I recall correctly, on mine the shelves are a single sheet of steel with the front side bent up to 90º. You would have to do yours the way you did because I don't believe you own a large press brake for bending sheet metal that big and thick.

Really top-notch work there! You could probably make and sell a few of them at a profit!

One little detail that might help yours (and mine) might be adding a little bar across the midpoint of the bottom space on the angled front uprights. I have a number of shorter bars that take up too much room lying horizontal on the shelves, but I can't stand them on end because they'd fall through.