How do you store your lumber?
- Horizontal on a wall rack
- Vertical against the wall
- Stacked and stickered
- In my rafters
- Anywhere I can find space
- Other (please post)
You will not be able to change your vote.
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Replies
Once again, limitations of the polling system come through. I store wood in the following manner:
1) Horizontal wall rack that when full leads to:
2) Vertical against the wall. When I run out of wall space:
3) Anywhere I can put it without tripping over it.
Jim
Jim,
Ditto your post. Why cannot Taunton improve their polls to get accurate information? Just how interested are they (and why) one wonders.
Cuh!
Lataxe, awash with timber just now.
That is what I do. Great minds and all that..
I have vertical and horizontal storage right now, eventually to be converted completely to vertical (for dried lumber). Much more space-efficient.
I do a few different things, I have a wall rack that I store some on, and I have a loft (about 8' bt 12' by 4' tall) that I store (sticker) wood on, I use the wall rack for short term and the loft for long term and anything that Is to much for the wall rack.
I am going to build another set of shelves on a wall (lower) below my clamps that I will use for wood that is part of the current project I am working on.
Doug
I store it at the lumber store!
I tell the folks at Lowes, "Everything in here is mine. You're just holding it for me as I pick it up one at a time"!
But I also store some on the shop floor with stickers. Depends on whether it needs to be acclimated or how big a pile of a single specie it is.
I store my 'sticks' in all ways listed except for ..Stacked and stickered.. I even have some standing on end in a large garbage can!
Ditto again Jim.
Ruth,By lumber you mean planks ? If so;
1- green from the sawyer in the overhead of a 12x20' high wall barn shed double rafted for load with a hatch in the peak for long stuff and an extended 2x6 ridge beam, hatch is 18" square top hinged with a roller at the bottom edge inside.
2-stickered on the shop floor as it gets close to useable for a current project.
3-wall rack over the RAS/ chop bench for dry spare stock,excess stays in the shed.
4- construction 2x4-6-...12etc KD and treated in shed
Sheet goods-- stand vertical, 8' edge on hard wood bars alongside the blind side of the stair and I am thinking about a rack with wood rollers in that space.
I want to rescind my vote for "Anywhere I can find space" and cast a vote for JimV's option. I try hard, but the wall rack is never quite large enough.
I have mine both in a horizontal rack and in/on my plywood rack stickered - but for the dry stuff I am now convinced that horizontal is the worst way to store it. Can't get at it, too many things get lost, and even if I can see something I want its too hard to get it! I'm converting to vertical this weekend.
Roger
Roger
I'd rather be making cabinets and friends....
Anywhere but the rafters. It's much easier to pick through vertically stored lumber but only use that for material I'm going to use within a week or two. I've always been afraid of warping if stored for longer periods vertically. Otherwise, horizontal stickered or unstickered. Plywood, horizontal only.
Paul
Ruth,
you didn't ask where!
I used to store it outside and before that at my sawmill just this summer. I got the last of it indoors this summer, but I'm afraid the vehiclas will be outside this winter.
here Herr Ubergloatinloggenhoger... I woulda thought that pile o yours would be near depleted by now or are ya still buyin 2 boards for every stick you use..??
;P~Mike Wallace
Stay safe....Have fun
Mike I did a Google on...Your search - Ubergloatinloggenhoger... - did not match any documents.
I store mine at the lumber yard until I need it. ;)
Other - horizontal in a ceiling mounted rack (this is in a garage with 8' ceilings). Rack is double layered, and large enough to hold 4x8 sheets of plywood (and strong enough to hold a half dozen or so). Made of plumbing pipe.
Bob
Like many other responders, my answer is not exclusive to any one method. I stack & sticker larger quantities (# of boards) of a species, I have a horizontal wall rack for longer onesy, twosey boards, long scraps, etc., and I have a vertical wood bin for short scraps.
-jj
I store my lumber on a lumber cart that I built with wheels. It is made to store 8 foot long plywood sheets and 8 foot long dimensional lumber and also short pieces as well. It's on 4" wheels and can be moved all around my shop.
Edited 10/24/2007 5:07 pm ET by ronebrooks
Ruth,
1.) Horizontal on wall rack in garage/shop.
2.) Vertically against other wall in garage/shop. OK, just shop. It'll never see a car.
3.) Vertically against wall in the downstairs hall off the shop. Wife's getting testy.
4.) Stacked and stickered in family room. She's really bent now, but it's some nice rare Red Mahoe.
There are two secrets to keeping one's wife happy.
1. Let her think she's having her own way.
2. Let her have her own way. President Lyndon Baines Johnson
I received a donation of 800 bf of walnut; kiln dried and sanded - to be dropped off in 48 hours!
I had it unloaded in the garage to force me to act. I designed and installed a rack which is suspended from the garage rafters. I leveled the shelves; covered them with OSB so that I did not have to worry about short lengths; and included a walkway alongside the shelves.
Frosty
"I sometimes think we consider the good fortune of the early bird and overlook the bad fortune of the early worm." FDR - 1922
Frosty,I did one of those garage ceiling racks a couple years ago. My biggest problem with it is my shop (and most of my wood) is in the basement. I tend to to forget about the 400+ BF in the garage.Jim"There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other is that heat comes from the furnace." - Aldo Leopold
Has anyone tried to store lumber on edge (horiz) this would allow you to get to any board. Down side would be only stack one deap (but a lot of them next to each other) you would have to be able to pull them from the end.
I wonder if this would cause the board to twist or bow?
Doug
"I wonder if this would cause the board to twist or bow?"
If not properly dried, probably. But then again, if it's going to twist or bow while sitting on edge in a rack, it's probably going to twist or bow when it's incorporated into a completed piece, so I'd rather know about it ahead of time.
-Steve
Hi Doug,
That's exactly what I did under my RAS bench.
I made several shallow spaced 14" shelves so I could stack cutoffs on their sides. It works quite good. I can get a lot more in than I could laid flat and I can find different widths easily too.
All my supply is stickered flat over the garage in a separate room from the woodshop.
Regards,
Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Edited 10/11/2007 3:46 pm ET by KiddervilleAcres
We have been storing lumber that way for many years with no problems. Rack is rather empty and untidy in this photo but you can see the system. Largest thickness of each species is at the bottom working up to smaller dimensions as it nears the top. Rack will handle 20' long boards. All boards are accessable without the need to unpile anything and all boards have air circulation around all sides at all times. You can stack some of the thick (6/4 & 8/4) on edge one on the other but there is seldom a need. Before any new lumber is added to the rack all existing boards are given a chalk or crayon mark on the end so just a glance tells you what has been in the shop awhile. Short cutoffs go in the spaces to the left. Plywood pieces in the spaces behind the shorts. Full plywood is stored in another area where it lays dead flat.
Rich
The Professional Termite
Edited 10/11/2007 6:32 pm ET by trialnut
I like the looks of that a lot. Mine is all on edge stored on extra sets of scaffolding. (OK, it started out on edge, now it's tossed on top.) But there's too much space being used up with 1 x on one set of scaffolding and 4 x on the other. I put a 10' deep loft in the shop and I'm going to build a rack area under one end of the loft around 8' wide and an office area at the other end. That will still leave me a few long pieces to be stored vertically.
I age and cure mesquite wood myself and only cut what I need for a specific project. What little plywood, MDF and particle board materials I have are stored flat against the garage wall. My shop is half ( more than half) of a fair size two car garage in a house that I rent. Living in Phoenix metro there is rarely need for heat and there is an evaporative cooler to keep me and the car somewhat cool in the summer.
I'm with "all of the above and then some"
Long lumber goes horizontally on a 3'x12' stand alone rack bolted to the wall
Shorts vertically on edge in a shorts bin, or on a shelf for really short
Plywood sheets 4' or more vertically on the long edge in a 3'x8' rack with roller bottom,
Smaller plywood pieces flat on shelf over sheets
Some hardwood stacked and stickered for seasoning.
I store most of my lumber in these first two ways:
1. I built the "Paul Anthony" style plywood stands onto which I can stack an enormous amount of wood and several pieces of sheet goods (depends on thickness). Extremely strong design and not difficult to build; also easy to move when empty.
2. I built a "Norm" style shop helper cart with 4 shelves to stack work in progress. I could also have used several of the woodworking mags' names instead of Norm's since I've seen variations in just about all of them.
3. When I run out of room, I grab two of my sawhorses and just stack it up. . .
Rob
The poll didn't have an "All the Above" nor a "jumbled mess" option, and that is how I store my wood, verticle, horizontal, stickered, not stickered, on carts, not on carts a jumbled mess and then in a firewood pile.
That about sums it up.
Santa Barbara,CA
I converted a spare 3' x 7' workbench into rolling lumber rack:
View Image
Edited 10/12/2007 12:20 pm by GettinTher
Edited 10/12/2007 12:21 pm by GettinTher
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