Good to be back......

[PurpleHeart]

Have been gone from the forum for a few months. Wow, what terrific changes and new members! Great to 'read' old faces as well. I haven't done any woodworking in a few months and am slowly getting back into the swing of things. I plan to spend the summer cleaning and re-working my shop, building lumber storage racks, re-thinking the business etc. I only scheduled one show for the summer so I can take it slow and rebuild the shop before I start ww'ing again.

I will plow through old ww mags today but does anyone have a quick reference for good lumber storage racks? What works for you? I have everything from 8' curly cherry boards to thumbnail size exotics that I can never seem to throw out. (I am pleased that I finally cleaned out and have about 8 totes full of junk lumber for the first camping trip of the summer!)

Happy sawdustin'

PurpleHeart

[http://home.sprynet.com/~ssisti]

[barbsiddiqui]

Welcome back, Purpleheart! Reorganizing a shop can be more fun than many projects are, in my experience. In my small one-car garage shop, my long lumber as you describe is up on wooden arm racks half-lapped to upright two-by, floor to ceiling rafters, but those are set out from the wall and toe-nailed to a base platform so I can slip sheet goods in behind them. Altogether, I think, two feet of floor space taken up, with the wood arms supporting boards both afore and behind the upright two-bys. The bottom platform keeps the wood off my concrete floor, and needs several feet of open space off one side to slip large sheet goods in and out...depends on what you need to store. That's one way to do it. And for smaller off-cuts, take a look at a 'Starting Points' column I did (accessible off the homepage) on bundling carpet tubes in different ways for storage. They are handy little things. I'm glad to see you're back. We missed you around here. -Barb S.

[pampine]

I've got two racks at the moment, one for lumber that's a simple 2x4 frame with the rear verticals nailed to a shed's interior studs, roughly 3-4' apart, cross members nailed to front and rear verticals, 8' or so wide (I'd measure this for you, send a photo, but I'm at a client site a couple thousand miles from home). This one is chock full of lumber, a lot of which is yet to be reclaimed, a lot more is kiln dried cherry.

The other rack is for fairly fresh logs (black walnut, sycamore, hackberry, red oak), put this together just a couple of weeks ago, sitting outside, 16 cement or cinder blocks, two high, 4' apart front to back and left to right. Length wise I placed 1'x8' plywood along the front and back, logs run from front to back for the short ones, longer ones on top of the shorter. Some of these are fairly small, intended for some stick furniture and outdoor structures, some intended for some massive log furniture (such as a platform bed) that I want to experiment making, the rest need to be milled when I get time. When I get home I plan to cover this rack with a tarp or two.

Eventually I want to build a solar kiln with covered storage between kiln and workshop, would hold all wood, but this is a couple or three months off.

Pam

[Raven]

Hey girl, welcome back! FWW had an article called "3 ways to rack lumber" in issue 130. I built the first rack, and it has worked out well, although it requires some floor space. When I had a smaller shop, I built a set of brackets and bolted it to the wall, it took a lot of weight, and it was nice to use the wall space.

Raven

[PurpleHeart]

Thanks for the responses! Barb, I did read your article (great stuff) some time ago and will revisit. Great ideas all. I also found an idea in Shop Notes that I think might work. It incorporates a roller base platform design such as I have now but makes much better use of space than what I have. In essence, the storage area is shaped like an inverted V. Long pieces are stored inside the V while shorter pieces can stand up vertically on the outside of the V. It can also handle panel sheets.

My usable ceiling space is limited but I can build some wall racks. Found a design that can be wall mounted to hold dowel. Such great ideas, so little time! :)

PurpleHeart

[http://home.sprynet.com/~ssisti]

[Weez]

Great to see you back. Sounds like we have the same project for the summer. I am fortunate enough to have a loft area in the shop. Not much head room but great for storing stuff. Right now the shop is a really mess. Flurry of activity the past month. I had a problem with my small pieces of wood, I kept loosing them. Finally converted any old kitchen cabnet to put them in, It hangs up on the wall and out of the way. Here lately alot of things have ended up on the wall.
Weez