Conference 7.286::home_work

It would probably be a good idea to ask this in DELNI::WOODWORKING_AND_TOOLS
also.  There's a fair amount of reader-overlap between the two files, but 
you'll find more woodworking types there.

I built a rack for my basement that is up against one wall.  I took two 
vertical 2x4s, and in between them I put three rack braces that look something 
like this:  (You'll have to imagine that the lower brace is angled and set into
a notch in the upper brace - kind of hard to draw with character graphics).

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There are three of these braces, at about 2, 4, and 6 feet off the ground, and 
there's a plain 2x4 resting on the floor between the two verticals.  The top of 
the vertical 2x4s are attached to a joist.  I think there are 4 of these units, 
spaced about 4' apart along the wall.  They are just nailed together with 16d 
common nails, and I've had about 1000 feet of various wood on there for 2 years
with no sign of sag. 

This is great for board lumber - and it would probably be OK for plywood pieces 
that were less than 2' wide and over 4' long.  I've yet to build a decent way
to hold small scraps, though.

Paul

    here goes,   2 pieces of strapping nailed to your floor joists
    (overhead)on each end(or 3 of theese) and the horizontal piece
    can be a 2x6 or even 1x6. My father has been a carpenter/packrat
    for over 30 years and theese always worked out well.typical dimensions
    are approx. 3 ft. wide and 2 ft. tall.This will support a lot of
    weight and keep your stock off of valuable wall space.
                                           
    ----------------------------------------------
                    __                    __  <-- joist
    ________________||____________________||_______
                    ||                    ||
                    ||                    ||
                    ||  STOCK GOES        ||  <--strapping
                    ||                    ||
                    ||  HERE              ||
                  ___________________________
                 |___________________________|    <-- 1x6 or 2x6
                    ||                    ||
                    --                    -- 
     
    
                             GOOD LUCK
                             ...BD...

Yeah, I've seen the schemes in .1 and .2 before.  I've also seen free-standing 
A-frames.  I'd be very interested to learn about other setups that people
have tried. 

I'm also interested in useful ways to store shorter stock, on the order of one 
to three feet long - too short to store in a normal rack, but still too useful 
to burn as firewood.  A single big bin is good until the first time you remove 
a piece, and then all the other pieces get jumbled up. 

And general thoughts about convenient, organized storage of lumber and sheet 
stock is welcome too.

I tried the public library, and picked up the tip that large, awkward or
heavy stock should be stored near the floor, for easier handling, or at
least stored within convenient reach, so you don't have to handle it while
you're stretching, leaning, or otherwise off balance. 

Other than that nifty tip, and sketches of .1's wall rack and .2's ceiling
rack, I didn't find anything in the library.  Many books had sections about 
how to organize your workshop from the standpoint of tools, but nothing 
about storing the lumber.

Re WOODWORKING_AND_TOOLS:  I looked there, but decided to ask here first
because of the wider readership, and to avoid lectures about low-humidity
storage and stickering every two inches being absolutely required.  I'll go
there, if necessary, once things quiet down here - but so far the replies
here are great. 

By the way, I didn't find any suitable keywords in either conference - 
nothing about "storage", or "workshop", or even "lumber".  I settled on
"tools", which isn't right, but it's the closest.

    A negative -  I used to have all my stuff in piles all over the
    place so I built a ceiling mounted affair as mentioned in previous
    replies.
    
    That consolidated the wood so well that I would "lose" stuff in
    the middle of the rack (and buy stock I already had but had forgotten
    about).  This never happened with the random piles.
    
    I think you wanna make sure you can see the END of the rack where
    you can pick out everything you have.  This would not happen if
    you go from wall to wall with the rack such that you only see the
    long dimension.
    

One idea that I've seen for small-scrap storage (from FWW) is to make a rack of 
various sizes of tubing - carpet roll tubes would be a good size for small 
stuff, and you could pick them up for free from almost any carpet place.  
Perhaps some chunks of sonotube for larger pieces, although I'd think you could 
find something cheaper than that.  Cut off a bunch of 1'-2' pieces and glue 
them together in a honeycomb pattern.  Then you have a bunch of small 
compartments for different kinds and sizes of wood.

This would work very well for exotic woods where the smallest scrap is saved,
but I have my doubts as to its usefulness for more common woods.  I've
certainly found that the species of wood has a great deal to do with what is
considered savable - pine has to be nearly big enough to make a shelf out of to
be considered worth saving, anything much bigger than a toothpick gets saved
from rosewood. 

Unfortunately, I don't have any bright ideas about what to do about all those
3"x18" oak scraps. 

Paul

For my scraps - I bnought a 16" x 30" by 5 shelves steel shelving unit 
for $20.  I think 18" x 36" is also available

    I recently built rack similar to .2 but used 2X4's instead of the
    straps. I built in upper section (close to floor joist) for small
    strips, 1X1 and 1X2's. A lower section is used for the 2x4's and
    larger. The rack is in the corner of the basement and the walls
    under neath the rack are used to lay larger sheets of plywood against.
    
    I have quite a bit of lumber stored in a small area. 

I am in the same situation. Right now Im building a woordworking shop in the
back of my garage (also being built) and will need LOTS of wood storage
space, both in the shop for short term storage and up in the attic for long
term, bulk, storage.  One idea I had for bulk storage was to build a structure
out of 3/4 steel pipe which would resemble staging.  2 uprights with cross
pipes every 2 feet, several of these 2 feet apart.  It may be a little expensive
but it can be moved, and its very sturdy and straight.  for the shop I might
build a similar structure out of 2x4's with a couple bins for scraps.

    Of course, if you build a complex enough lumber storage rack, you will 
use up most of those scraps ans short ends, leaving you a beautiful rack 
with nothing to put on it!  8^)

    Seriously, I have utilized a space in my basement that the previous 
owner left me after he finished the basement off. I considered it a waste 
until I needed a lumber storage spot. It is under the stairs leading down, 
walled in with 2x4 construction on both sides and open from the rear only.
I have put in simple Stanley angle brackets on one side to create two 
shelves, one over the other, with scrap lumber as the shelf itself. the 
other side of the tunnel is for plywood scraps and other such stuff. The 
two shelves hold stuff up to 4' long and as small as my Rosewood toothpicks 
that were aluded to earlier. Under the two shelves is a space up to 8' long 
on the floor for longer stock. It is not easy to get to everything, but I 
can see *most* of it, can reach much of it with minimal unpacking, and it 
is out of the way and makes good use of a wasted space.

    My real dream is to have enough space in the garage to put in an 
on-edge plywood rack with the front being a home-made panel saw device to 
simplify cutting 4x8 sheets of plywood without having to carry them to far 
or worry about cutting them accurately. Anybody ever done one of these?

    	Vic H

    :-)

What is the proper way to store 250 2x4x8' green-lumber studs?

I currently have it stacked in rows of 12 studs next to each other
with 2 perpendicular spacers every 10 rows or so, with a pair of
spacers on the floor. This is the way it was at the lumber yard.
I'm concerned that I still have large numbers of studs that don't
breath in many of the rows between spacers, and the studs on the top
of the stack don't have much weight on it to keep them straight. Also,
having green lumber is another factor in wanting to do everything possible
to store my lumber without having it change into every shape known
to mankind. (The spacers span all 12 studs, about 1 foot from the ends
of the rows)

How many rows should I have before having spacers? Is the pile better
in a vertical mode? Are there some "tricks" to keeping this lumber
straight?

thanks.

Not all at once everybody! :-)

since there wasn't a flood of advice on my last query, I'll reply
here what I did in case it may help someone else in the future:

I restacked the lumber by placing 3 spacers on the concrete floor
at the 7', 4', and 1' points of the studs. The spacers are about
24" long, and I put down 6 stud-wide rows, tightly packed. I figured
the more weight bearing down on the stud, the less it was going to be
able to twist. Also, the narrower rows (6 studs as opposed to 12) allows
them to air out better since no stud is more than 2 studs away from
the surface of the stack (as opposed to 5 studs away with rows of 12).
Stacking about 300 studs left me with a 7 foot high stack. Also I figure
that only the top row or two of the stack was susceptible to warping.
I kept the ends very even to prevent the ends from drying out at different
rates from the middle of the studs, thus causing end splitting.

I only put one set of spacers in the middle of the pile... I'm not sure
if this was a good idea one way or the other...

Oh yes... I made the side of the stack tight against an uncovered studded wall
so that that side had support (and resistance to warpage) while still being
able to be exposed to the air.

    Check DELNI::WOODWORKING_AND_TOOLS.  There is some discussion about
    building your own lumber dryer and methods of stacking and drying
    lumber.   That audience also tends to keep more lumber on hand for
    long periods of time and will have more opinion on how to store lumber.
    
    Hit keypad 7 to add DELNI::WOODWORKING_AND_TOOLS to your notebook.

    
    	Definitely be sure you don't put the lumber in the sun!  I find
    covering wood while it may not dry as fast it will help keep it from
    twisting, bending, etc.  Drying it with sticks between works ok but I
    	also learned the hard way that I needed weight on top to keep it
    	straight.  Some of my cherry wood cupped/warped due to no weight
    	on it.  It was stickered well but thatwasn't enough!

    I was flipping through some books at the bookstore yesterday and they
    had a few ideas about lumber storage in a workshop.  
    
    They suggested having vertical supports about 6 inches away from the
    wall.  Then putting shelf brackets facing out into the room at 18-24
    inch vertical intervals.  The board stock acts as its own shelf
    supported by the brackets.  4x8 sheet goods and scraps of sheet goods
    are stored on edge between the wall and the vertical supports.  They
    recommened that this setup be alined with the door into the workshop to
    make it easy to get stock in and out of shop and into the storage area. 
    (but how to you get it out of storage and into the shop to work it?)  
    
    For smaller pieces they suggested a 5 gallon joint compound bucket.
    Stand the scraps vetically in the bucket.  The ends are visable to
    determine the shape if molding, to measure the diminsions if not, and
    the length is easy to guessimate.  You can pull out one piece with out
    upsetting the whole "pile".  I have used this method and it works
    fairly well.