vertical wood storage

[Keye]

I am back in the shop for a few days. Need to rest the old rear end from way to many long trail rides on my favorite horse. Headed to Blowing Rock on Friday and it will be at least 7 hours in the saddle.

Back to the reason for my thread. I thought I would at least start my vertical wood storage project. Looked at several other threads and learned a lot. As I was looking for ways I could screw even this simple project up I found at least one potential thing. I was planning on running 2X4's horizontally on the wall. With holes drilled in them for the wood supports. Seems to me I would find it very easy to end up with the holes not lined up vertically.

I then thought the solution might be to drill the holes on the drill press using a fence and then turning the 2X4 vertical. The holes would definitely be directly over each other. I then thought it might even be a good idea to lean the 2X4 a few degrees from vertical. Seems to me this would help with holding the boards stable. I also thought it would be easier to increase my storage area, with the 2X4's vertical, as I move down the wall.

Did I mention I am using pipe to support the boards.

What am I missing?

 

[Mark Stewart]

Look man I live near blowing rock and trust me theres nothing there worth 7 hrs in a sadle. I mean there is that one good hambuger spot but really thats a lot of hoof steps!

 

[Bas]

It's a pretty good idea, I don't think you're missing anything. The only consideration is that you're probably using a little more lumber running the 2x4 vertical. Big deal. 2x4s are cheap I'm not sure what the optimal angle would be. My guess is only a few degrees, you want to put those boards as close to vertical as you can.

For the record, I built a simple lumber storage solution about 6 months ago. Horizontal 2x4 and 3/4" pipe. The holes didn't exactly line up. The holes for the pipes weren't always perfect. The 2x4 weren't exactly parallel to one another. Not a problem - this is not fine joinery

The only mistake I guarantee you will make is not making enough supports. You will run out of room almost immediately. You will add supports. Then you will run out of wall :rolf:

 

[Alan in Little Washington]

Am I missing something? It sounds like you are building a "horizontal" wood rack, where the wood is horizontal, as opposed to a "vertical" rack where the wood is stored vertically.

Unless you need the wall/floor space beneath a horizontal rack, believe me, a vertical rack is easier and takes less material to build. It is safer since the floor supports the weight of the wood not pipes or arms and it is easier to load, easier inspect both sides of all boards, easier to select any board in the stack, etc. than is possible with a horizontal rack. There is a thread here about them.

If you look in my gallery you will see pics of my original horizontal rack that I took down before I even finished it and replaced it with a vertical rack.

Almost empty vertical rack:

Almost full, over 300 bft

 

[Tarhead]

Keye,
I'm using 24" long, 3/4" threaded black pipe screwed into pipe flanges about 6ft up the wall. The flanges are mounted into the edge of every other stud with 2, #12 woodscrews. Had to square up the ends and shorten a lot of boards to get them to fit into the new lumber shed. Daughter's boyfriend is a turner and was very happy when I gave him the offcuts.

 

[Keye]

Am I missing something? It sounds like you are building a "horizontal" wood rack, where the wood is horizontal, as opposed to a "vertical" rack where the wood is stored vertically.

Unless you need the wall/floor space beneath a horizontal rack, believe me, a vertical rack is easier and takes less material to build. It is safer since the floor supports the weight of the wood not pipes or arms and it is easier to load, easier inspect both sides of all boards, easier to select any board in the stack, etc. than is possible with a horizontal rack. There is a thread here about them.

If you look in my gallery you will see pics of my original horizontal rack that I took down before I even finished it and replaced it with a vertical rack.

Almost empty vertical rack:

Almost full, over 300 bft

Alan, I really am going to stand the wood vertical. I am not as neat as you. I need more than one pipe in each section to lean boards against. Also, what happens if the pipe is 10 feet high and the longest board you have is 8 feet?

 

[Keye]

Look man I live near blowing rock and trust me theres nothing there worth 7 hrs in a sadle. I mean there is that one good hambuger spot but really thats a lot of hoof steps!

The trails at Moses Cone Park are some of the best in NC. Stayed a week in Blowing Rock last summer and rode Moses Cone every day. We have Tn. Walking Horses and you can really turn them loose on the trails there. Did I mention they do not charge anything to ride the trails.:eusa_danc

 

[dkeller_nc]

Keye - One observer's comment here - If you're not going to use pipe floor flanges to mount the iron pipe to the 2X4, you might consider using a piece of "utility maple" (i.e. - non-figured and cheap) to use as the cleat. Over time, I would guess that pipes mounted directly into SYP would start to work themselves loose, as one drawback to SYP as a construction material is that it's somewhat soft compared to hardwoods. SPF, I would think, would be a real no-no in this application - it's way too weak.

 

[Alan in Little Washington]

Alan, I really am going to stand the wood vertical. I am not as neat as you. I need more than one pipe in each section to lean boards against. Also, what happens if the pipe is 10 feet high and the longest board you have is 8 feet?

If you put the divider pipes too high you have a problem unless you have a least one board to lean the shorter ones on. My pipes are at 8' and the ceiling slopes from 8' to 10' so can handle wood in that range. I was going to put in a lower set of dividers but figured I'd just run into them and gore myself. That being said, the height of the higher strip of pipes only needs to be high enough so you don't run your head into a pipe. You also want them low enough so you can reach the safety chains- Yes, I put safety chains on the ends- saved my noggin at least once when a board not cut square on the floor end decided to depart from the vertical position and headed straight for me.

If you do decide to put a lower set of pipes in, remember most boards will be slanted a little so it is not critical that they line up, in fact you may not want them to align. I would go ahead and mount the high set, but wait and see if you really need a lower set. One more thing, if you run a horizontal board the way I did, your lumber can't get closer to the wall than the thickneww of that board. If every inch matters (my horizontal board is a tad over 1" thick oak) then mount the pipes in short vertical lengths. If you have exposed studs, just drill the edges of the studs. The steeper you stack the boards, the less weight on the pipes, which is minimal to begin with.

The galvanized pipe I used didn't quite match up with any of my bits for a tight fit, so I bought a cheap oversized spade bit and ground it down a little.