who built a metal storage rack

Looking for ideas for building a rack to hold my metal stock.

 

Mine in the background. I used some 2by2 by 1/4" angle.

 

Metal stock storage is easy. I played hell trying to find a place to store my s****. Nothing is the same size, hate to throw any of it away. I finally had to wheelbarrow it to the shed for now.

 

Storage for long sticks is the easy part - use a system like Fitty shows, but like Wicked states the small s**** is the hard stuff to store...

what I did was get a bunch of plastic bins at the local $.99 store and use them for small cut-offs (less then 12"). I use cat litter trays (new NOT used) for the larger bits. All my longer stock (sicks of 1/2" - 3" over 2' long) goes into 5 gallon buckets.

It the most frustrating thing about working with metal and never wanting to toss anything out.

Good luck and post up what you come up with.

Cheers,

 

heavy down low and light above it ... and as close as possible to the saw table ...

Thats all a no-brainer but on the shorts, the local Ace Hardware gives me all their left-over chain buckets which are plastic, about five gallons and square .... and I store all the little stuff in them by profile. ... being square they store pretty tight.

 

Check the project section on Miller welding website.

 

I built a large strong steel rack for my business. making one that attached to the block wall allowed the most storage with the smallest footprint. Knowing there was no way to use the rack in my home shop, whenb I closed the business I left the steel rack in place. The current occupant is still using "my" steel rack and my steel is laying in a pile in the floor. Point being, unless you are SURE you won't move, make(or buy) a rack that is free-standing.

For design, be guided by what can be bought. A tall triangle with slightly angled shelf arms mounted to the angled face of the triangle is stable and doesn't require a lot of material to make stiff & strong. Most of the arms can be left open, but it's nice to have a "floor" between at least two shelf arms to accomodate short lengths that would fall between the arms.

 

for long stuff i use a rack like fitty's. for the short stuff i used a beat up shopping cart. it allows me to move it around and tuck it in a corner out of the way.

later jim

 

I set up one of those 10X20 metal coverall sheds behind my shop and keep it all in there.

 

i use a set of 4 wheeler ramps.welded together at top.about 5'apart on bottom.holds lots of stuff .from 10" to 10' in a smaall foot print. oh yea, put some wider feet on so it dont tip.

 

i also use 5g buckets stacked for small stuff and i made the frames in the pic ...bench/rack

 

Thanks for the great ideas. That Miller site has some cool project information.