Heavy wood rack needed

Al killian

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Floydada, Tx
Well today we found the limit of the one lumber rack. We had what we thought would be a great design, well maybe it was just not meant for waht we put on it. Anyway, we bulit it using 2x4s stading parrell and then vertical ones in between and everything bolted together. Well i gues 4'tall x 18"of red oak and maple stacked on the two shelfs was to much and tonight it turned into splinters.:rofl:

OK anyone have ideas for the next one? I have been thinking of building it more like the lumber yeards using 2x6 and lay the boards on that with 4x4s in the corners.
 
I too use a heavy steel framed set of shelving.
It currently holds about 500 bd ft of hardwoods without a single groan.

If you are going to use wood, I wouldn't use 2x6. I'd use 2x10's !
 
Sounds like it was weight per shelf and not overall weight that may have got you. The same load and design using 5 shelves instead of two may have been OK. I keep my "arm" spacing to 6" as I don't like to dig for what I am after but, your stack sounds more like a volume issue than an accessibility issue. If the arms were the only thing that initially failed I would go with a similar design and more arms.
 
What was your spacing between supports? Twice as many uprights, and you're going to be able to hold roughly twice the load.That's pretty important, also how long are the arms.

Holding a load at 18" center from the upgright is 3x as hard as holding it 6" away from the upright.

Do you think the upgrights failed, or the "arms" that were holding the wood? Using more shelves with 1/2 the weight of course helps there.

In my opinion, using 2x6 for upgrights isn't going to buy you much at all over the 2x4's if they're failing at the joints. increasing the number of upgrights per foot of shelf, more shelves with less load, etc will help a lot more
 
Splinters? Wish you hadn't told me that!

Oh well, this one is 27 years old and still standing. First I built the plywood rack, and added a top for a place to store stuff. When the wood pile got kinda big, a second story was added. It is supported with six 2x4s that run to the floor, so no additional weight is on the original rack.
 

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What about using some 4x4's drilled through every 10 -12" to accept a length of galv. pipe to act as the shelf supports then frame accordingly to keep it tied into the floor and ceiling. If you have the room use 5'pipe that way you have a bit over 4' between the posts and can store sheet goods as well. This set up can be expanded as needed. collapsed when not needed and moved easily (when not loaded) plus by using multiple shelves you would spread the load out more as Glenn mentioned.
 
First thanks for all the post. The supports where every 3'. Yes Chuck the bolts where the weak point on this. We have decided we are going to do a aframe system for the new racks. I am not going to try and explaint it. Will post picks tommrow when i get the first one bulit. This is going to do two things for us. First, it will give us more storage and second, it will allow us to lookat the boards from the end and be able to get to the whole stack.
 
Splinters? Wish you hadn't told me that!

Oh well, this one is 27 years old and still standing. First I built the plywood rack, and added a top for a place to store stuff. When the wood pile got kinda big, a second story was added. It is supported with six 2x4s that run to the floor, so no additional weight is on the original rack.

As the guy from Australia said, "Now that's a knif---woodrack"

Enjoy

Jim
 
I got these from a local salvage yard a few years ago. The uprights were originally 14' high - not too practical without a forklift. I had the welding shop cut a third off each one and use the short pieces to fabricate two more uprights. So the're just shy of 10' now. There's no flex in the beams and I got enough cross-ties for lumber support every 2 feet (hard to see the cross ties in the pics).
The beams are 9' long. I've seen longer ones, but I find most of my hardwood inventory is 8' anyway.
They work great and helped me make use of more of my vertical space.
(The frost-stained oak in the pic was a disappointment. I probably shuld have used bigger stickers to get more airflow:( )
:wave: Peter
 

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