Lee Valley Lumber Rack

Jay Lock

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Hi everyone

Well I decided to try to give myself a bit more organized lumber storage in the cramped garage, the only available space was above some storage cabinets.

I though about building a rack but the old time/money quandary raised its ugly head and time won. And, given the limited available space, I was concerned that a wooden rack would require more space thus reducing the storage capability.

I bought parts from Lee Valley/ I am extremely impressed with the strength of these parts, they are massive!

The storage arms are 14" deep.

Here are the parts before I installed them

View attachment 4209

And here is the rack on the wall

View attachment 4210

I probably have a bit of overkill in the spacing of the wall brackets. But, the studs are 16" on center; installing the uprights on every other stud would result in 32" between the brackets, I thought, too great a distance to safely store "good wood".

Now I have to go get some wood! There are a couple of piece of spalted maple resting there along with some left over hard maple from the bathroom remodel project, some teak and a piece of snake-wood (I think)! Not a lot of great stuff but at least it isn't leaning against the wall and now I"ve got some space to store stuff for future projects.

Jay
 
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Congratulations Jay.

Those racks are great. I have them installed along the entire length of the back wall of Shed 2 (i.e. my workshop):

Lumber rack on the back wall of shed 2.JPG

They are the 12" variety and are spaced about 4 feet apart along the entire 40 foot wall at the back of the shop and garden shed.
 
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I'm new to this board and as you can see this is my first post. Some of you may have seen a similar post on another board so please forgive my duplicaton.

I also opted for the Lee Valley unit. The specs state that the rack will hold 600 lbs. at the wall end and 300 lbs. at the outside end of the bracket. During construction I added 2x12 blocks between the studs for extra strength. I then attached the 2x4's to those brackets. This is what it looks like now. I didn't have to worry about the stud location in my case and as you can see in the photo weight doesn't seem to be an issue. Most of the boards are either 4/4 fairly wet Ponderosa pine and 8/4 dry Ponderosa pine all quite heavy.

I don't know if you can see it clearly but on the next to bottom shelf there are a couple of 98" Bessey clamps, just to give you an idea of the width of the installation.
 

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Nice racks Jay and Rick! I am going to have to do something like that as I am out of room. I think that 16" is perfect Jay. You will never have to worry if they are to far apart. I have block walls so can space however I want to but I could rest well with that spaceing. Looks expensive though. I am going to have to check out the price.
 
Nice racks Jay and Rick! I am going to have to do something like that as I am out of room. I think that 16" is perfect Jay. You will never have to worry if they are to far apart. I have block walls so can space however I want to but I could rest well with that spaceing. Looks expensive though. I am going to have to check out the price.
Hey Allen, what about mine? :p
 
Hi Jay,

I love my Lee valley rack. I installed it on 32" centers then decided I better add more lag screws as I added more lumber to it. I am posting a picture of my rack...it's visible in the background. I think there is about 500 bd. ft. on there.



T26 Shaper 003.jpg


Doug
 
Well, I can always take out a few brackets and hang them up in another part of the shop! I was concerned that the wood woudn't stay flat with the brackets so far apart.

Jay
 
Hey Allen, what about mine? :p

Frank, That is a new one on me. Putting one on the exterior along the back of your shop. I like the one in your garage but I do not have room for it. I am going to have to put it all along one wall due to room restraints and will not have room to get the wood out of the ends. I finished your CD, page by page. I found it very interesting and will send you a message in a day or two. That was a lot of work on your part, both the CD and the shop. Thanks for the copy!

Doug Sinjem, You are a lot better looking that I thought that you would be. Just kidding as I know that cannot be you. Whoever it is really dresses up your shop.

From what I have read before I thought that the closer the braces were togeather, within reason, the better it was to keep the wood from deforming but it looks like that is not really the case from the post here. Maybe from what I read here I will give twenty four inches or so a try.
 
Jay,
I have the LV racks from floor to ceiling on 16" centers. There is so much wood on them I am afraid one day I am going to walk into my shop and the South wall will have inploded. They are worth every $ I paid for them.

Brian
 
Frank, That is a new one on me. Putting one on the exterior along the back of your shop. I like the one in your garage but I do not have room for it. I am going to have to put it all along one wall due to room restraints and will not have room to get the wood out of the ends. I finished your CD, page by page. I found it very interesting and will send you a message in a day or two. That was a lot of work on your part, both the CD and the shop. Thanks for the copy!

Doug Sinjem, You are a lot better looking that I thought that you would be. Just kidding as I know that cannot be you. Whoever it is really dresses up your shop.

From what I have read before I thought that the closer the braces were togeather, within reason, the better it was to keep the wood from deforming but it looks like that is not really the case from the post here. Maybe from what I read here I will give twenty four inches or so a try.

No Allen that's not me, it's my shop helper. I'm twice as big and not as good looking:rofl:

Doug
 
Me too! :headbang: Although mine are from WoodCraft.
I am going to extend the top row above the door. Those two won't be able to be extended to the floor for support so they will be used for all that super long PVC etc. that is crudding up the yard between the back wall of the shop and the fence.

100_1224.jpg


For now, I'm using one strip floor to celing for shelves until I can get my cabinets/shelves built.
100_1226.jpg


These sure are expensive!!!! But I really like them.
The only wood I have at this point is for "2X4 Technology." I'm building a shop. :thumb:

Don
 
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Hey Doug :confused:
I went to Lee Valley and typed in "Shop Helper." No luck? :dunno:
You must have gotten the last one. :(

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

On a serious note, I would love to have a sidekick. I am one of those who is really happy to see more women taking on wood working. Back when I had hair, :rolleyes: there was this pre-teen youngster that was fascinated by my one car garage literally buried in sawdust.
She lived across the street and her father and I had a conference about tools and what would be safe for her to work with. She was a natural when it came to sanding small edge pieces and things that really take practice to do by hand without rounding edges. The boys in the neighborhood weren't as good and I made a major mistake. I ask her to teach them. WRONG! :rofl:
Boys of that age are NOT going to be taught by a girl.
Anyway, I was still married at the time and my wife made an off handed statement one day, "You are going to lose her when she discovers Boys." I was never so sorry to see her be right. :( That young lady is married now with kids of her own.

Don't know what reminded me of that story. Sorry for the long uh... thread-stealing post. :wave:

Don
 
Hey Doug :confused:
I went to Lee Valley and typed in "Shop Helper." No luck? :dunno:
You must have gotten the last one. :(

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:


Don

I did the same thing with no luck either.

I am glad that Jay started this thread. I finally got me off of my duff and decided to do something about the piles of wood (picture one as an example) that are taking up to much space and also hard to get to at times. I had read that a guy said that instead of using the Lee Valley rack he decided to use the Sterling Heavy Duty ones at HD as they worked well and were much cheaper that the Lee Valley ones. I could not find the Sterlings but found the Rubbermaid shelving unit. It is also very strong, it appears, but is also expensive. The same or more than the Lee Valley one but has 18 1/2" brackets instead of 14".

Here is the cost breakdown.

Home Depot: Four 48" standards at $5.99 equals $23.96 and twenty 18.5" double brackets at $4.97 equals $99.40 for a total of $123.36 plus tax.

Lee Valey: Four 48" standards at $7.90 equals $31.60 and twenty 14" double brackets at $3.50 equals $70.00 for a total of $101.60 plus shipping.

I probably could have saved a good bit of money building one out of wood or a wood pipe combination but like Jay I would have lost some storage space against the wall and it is already finished and I am starting to stack wood. That is worth something I suppose.
 

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Allen,

Looking at the close-up of the arm and mounting bracket, I don't think the HD rack is quite as substantial as the Lee Valley one. What is the weight rating of yours? As I mentioned in my earlier post the Lee Valley one is rated at 600 pounds at the wall and 300 at the end of the bracket. For the minor cost difference I'd definately go with Lee Valley.
 
Rick,

You might be right. Rubbermaid shows a load rating of 450 lbs per bracket pair which would be much less than yours. I figure that at two pairs per shelf for mine that I could load 900 lbs per shelf with four brackets. That would give me 4,500 lbs total for the four standard five shelf unit which is more than I could ever load on it stacking wood. I think that if I were going to exceed this weight that I would worry about the attachment to the wall rather than the weight limit of the shelving system. If I were going to store really heavy stuff, such as steel or iron, I would weld it out of iron and support it from the floor up.

I do find it strange to see two weight limits let you mention on each bracket of the Lee Valley system. 600 lbs at the wall and 300 lbs at the end of the bracket. What does that mean? Can you put 450lbs half way out on the bracket or what? I have not checked their website but the Lee Valley and Veritas Jan 2007 catalog shows the double brackets load rated at 150 lbs each (page 17). It shows the supported brackets load rated at 300 lbs. The supported brackets waste to much space for me so I would have to have gone with the 150 lb variety which is 300 lbs per pair compaired to the 450 lbs per pair that the Rubbermaid ones are rated at.

So, to me, compairing the two systems the load rating for the Rubbermaid unit is greater than the Lee Valley unit if your are going to use the Dbl. brackets for about the same price. Also the maximum length of the Lee Valley double brackets is 14" whereas the Rubbermaid maximum width is 24". Due to space limitations I went with the 18.5" brackets. The 18.5" brackets also had the highest load rating of the different lengths.

OK, here is the deal. I went on line and found the Lee Valley system that you are showing the load figures for. YOU ARE RIGHT. They are showing 600 lbs evenly loaded per bracket or 2,400 lbs for four brackets. So for five shelves (20 brackets and four standards) a whopping load of 12,000 lbs and a total cost excluding shipping of $337.20. That is $213.84 more than I paid for my cheap system which will do me. I am not sure that my block wall is rated for that kind of a load anyway. I would have to support it at floor level and anchor it to the wall and then find something that heavy to put on it. At about one third the cost of this system I feel certain that I made the right decision for my needs. Others may have more demanding needs and this Lee Valley system might just fit.

You are out of my league. At least I got some typing practice.

Allen
 
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Thanks for starting this thread Jay. :) Because of the thread, I now have a new place to store wood in my shop. This morning, for some reason that I can’t explain, I was thinking about the thread as I worked. It suddenly occurred to me that a rack built with these supports would fit in well over the main entry door inside Shed 2. So, here it is:

Over-the-doorwood rack -1 -small.JPG Over-the-doorwood rack -2-small.JPG

I built the rack out of spare parts and I had no 18” brackets on hand. Once I buy some, the rack will be even more useful.
 
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