Lumber Rack

[jonathan55]

Hi, I haven't posted for a while but am still a BT3 owner!

I'd like to see how people here store lumber. I have gotten enough so it just doesn't seem to work to lean it against the wall any more. I was thinking about the Lumber Rack on sale at Woodcraft but am also thinking about makeing something with 2x4's.

Please post pics of how you store lumber,

Thanks,
Jonathan

[LarryG]

I can't help a whole lot, but FWIW ...

This is a very old picture of the materials storage room in my previous shop building. I've now moved my tools out of the adjacent room into another, nearby building; but I still use this room to store some of my wood.



The room measures a bit shy of 12' long by 6' wide. Lumber goes onto the homemade racks at right (there's another ~5' or so of racks out of frame at front left). The racks consist of 2x4 tapered outriggers that each have a half-lap bolted connection to the bare studs. I can easily get 10' long material onto these racks, and 11' or so if necessary. Small sheet goods went onto the inclined rack you see under the shelf on which the compressor sits -- both the rack and the compressor have now moved to the other building. Large sheet goods were leaned against the long wall at left (I didn't have much big stuff on hand when this particular picture was taken). I now also have some more rough lumber stacked on the floor down the right half of the room.

In an outside lean-to I have three of the Triton wood racks mounted side-by-side on a long wall (i.e., six standards in all, spaced about two feet apart), so they'll hold 12' long material. I don't have a photo of those but the setup looks just like the photo on the Woodcraft web site, times three.

The Tritons are nice enough but they're way overpriced at $70; the current $50 sale price is more reasonable but arguably still iffy. I bought mine when they were on sale for $40, which IMO is probably about what they're worth.

[gad5264]

Here is mine.

[LCHIEN]

http://www.bt3central.com/showthread.php?t=36800&highlight=lumber+rack

[pelligrini]

I built a 5 x 12 addition to my shop/shed for wood & other storage. These are some shots after putting cleaning up for the night. (I really wish I would have cut into the shed roof and made the addition taller. Saving some money on material and leaving a working roof alone was certainly not worth it)

My rack is just some of the metal shelving stuff from lowes. The wall brackets are space 24" OC, screwed into the wall studs of the shed.

I really ought to sticker the better wood though, I've just been too lazy to do it.

[thrytis]

I didn't have exposed studs, so i attached 2x4s to the wall with lag screws. The brackets are 2x4s sandwiched by 3/4" plywood and bolted onto the upright supports. There are no brackets on the bottom half because i plan to park a plywood cart there at sometime in the future. I store cutoffs between the upright supports held in by a bungee cord.

[Uncle Cracker]

I don't have pictures, but I have a whole wall in my garage populated with double-lug steel racks mounted to concrete blocks, starting just above the nose of my car, and going all the way up (10' ceiling).

[big tim]

Check:

http://www.bt3central.com/showthread.php?t=36230

[footprintsinconc]

UC, like you said before, no pictures, no rack!

[Uncle Cracker]

UC, like you said before, no pictures, no rack!

Sometimes... I got no pix of LOML either, but fortunately she still has a rack...

[jonathan55]

Thanks for all the replys and ideas! Thrytis, I like the storage for small piece idea under your rack!

Jonathan

[Tom Clark]

Jonathan,

Here's a simple wood rack that takes little floor space, yet holds everything.

[Wood_workur]

If you're looking for something economical, I've been using heavy shelving brackets from the borg that are height adjustable. I've had like 100 bf of pine cedar and maple on one shelf, and no sign of buckling or failure of any kind.

I'm taking about the less heavy duty version of this guy:

[jackellis]

I'm starting to think about storing materials, mostly solid lumber, in my new shop (house should have a roof this week or next if the snow lets up). I do not have suitable covered space outdoors to store lumber that can't be stored inside so there are likely to be shelves for lumber everywhere and then some.

This thread had some very creative designs for lumber racks but I'm curious to know lengths on the arms. It appears most are 12"wide. I'm thinking I'd *like* something wider and I've set aside a space that's 24 inches wide and 8' long on one wall, plus space above some of the machines that will be on mobile bases.

By my rough calculations, 1' wide arms spaced 12" vertically and 16" laterally means each set of rack arms will be supporting 400-500 pounds (at 60-80 pounds per cubic foot, which is what Loring used for his calcs). 24 inch arms will support twice as much, or between 200 and 250 pounds per arm. I've run a bunch of beam calculations and the wood arms in this post appear to be adequate, even if I put all the load at the end of the arm. However, I'm curious about the arm lengths Loring and Big Tim used.

[bigstick509]

Up and out of the way.