Considering a Rack for Storing Bar Stock

[Kim]

As part of my Shop re-do, I’ve been looking for a better way to store my bar stock.  I currently have it on a shelf in cardboard tubes.  It’s not bad, but I’m getting too much metal there and I can never see what I have.  I’ve got long pieces and short pieces and they hide and I can’t find them.

Plus, I think its getting too heavy for the shelf its on.

So, I have looked around on the web and taken that inspiration to design a new metal rack for my shop (it also gave me a chance to learn the basis of Fusion 360 ).


The rack isn’t huge – the whole thing is about 36” tall, and 36” wide, by 30” deep (front to back that is).

There will be 25 square areas, about 5x6 inches, to hold stock standing upright.  The reason its 36” tall is that I buy most of my bar stock in 48” lengths (some in 6’, but mostly 4’).  So the tall ones go in back, and shorter pieces go toward the front.

On the left side, there are two 6” sections to hold sheet metal.  I usually get that in 12”x24” or 24”x24” sheets or so.

This is also going to be a beginner welding project for me.  I’ve done very little welding, but would like to develop that skill just a bit.  I don’t think I’ll be any great welder, but I think it would be a cool skill to have in my bag of tricks

Anyway, that’s my current plan.  But I wanted to pass it by the collective wisdom of the group.  Does that look reasonable?  What do you guys do for metal storage?  I don’t have a lot of floor space to dedicate to it, but It certainly deserves some amount of though and effort to keep it nice and where you can find it.  Metal isn’t an inexpensive resource!

Thanks,
Kim

[gerritv]

I built something similar but without the angle, wish I had thought of that. The only addition I might suggest is to provide a floor and then put the whole thing on good wheels. It was also a beginner welding project for me.
It is wonderful to be able to see all the matrials at hand, makes it much more likely that you will cut up the smallest piece of material for the job.

The other thing I built for the shorter cutoffs is a simple carcass with shelves on drawer slides.

Gerrit

[Kim]

That's a nice little rack, Gerrit.  And I like the shelf too, for the odd pieces and larger chunks.

I've considered a floor.  Hand't thought about wheels.  I'm worried that it will be pretty heavy and I'm not sure I want to add height to it.  But your's seems to work pretty well!  I'll have to give that some thought.

Thanks for the feedback!
Kim

[Jo]

  Looks like you are planning on storing a lot of longer material. I tend to have less long stuff and more stuff about 12" long.

What do you guys do for metal storage? 

I managed to "acquire"  an old industrial 18" deep rack from my supplier one which matched the 12" one I already had  As you can see I store the 12" long bits of material end on on the smaller rack and longer pieces on the wider rack. Sadly these are in the main garage so they get condensation so the Steel over the  20 odd years I have had it has that brown protective coating that Jason appreciates so much.

I was also lucky to buy a little double set of secretary drawers which were deemed to be too shallow to put tooling in. My supplier when he saw what I had done regretted getting rid of it. The deeper metal secretary drawers are nice but the weight of metal in them can rapidly get a bit too heavy.

There are a few bits of steel that I don't want to get that brown protective coating on and those are the ones that I don't intend on machining all over (hex & square) and these seem to have sneaked onto the shelves in the work shop   

Jo

[Jasonb]

If I did not know better Jo I would have thought that was a wood storage rack - so much brown stuff.

Will take a few pics of my storage later but I seem to use metal at the same sort of rate that I buy it so there is not too much to store

[Jo]

Buy  all of that was free

The only thing I normally have to buy   is noggins of EN8

Jo

[Kim]

Thanks for the pics, Jo.  I appreciate seeing your storage system.  And you certainly have a lot of metal to store!  How'd you get it for free?  That doesn't look like 'free' metal to me.  I don't have any supplier of free stuff like that!  Sure, I've gotten a piece here or there from some cast-off item, but nothing like that kind of selection!  Only a few small sheets of aluminum or a little mystery metal rod or something.  Nothing like that huge inventory!

When I buy bar stock, I tend to get 48" lengths because the price per foot usually comes down pretty quickly after the first foot or two, and then that way I'll have extra for muck-ups and for future projects.  But if its expensive larger dimension stuff, then I get what I need. So I have a lot of 24-36" stock and of course, shorter pieces too.  But this seemed like a good compromise for now.  Clearly wouldn't work for the amount you have!

Thanks Jason, I'll look forward to seeing your storage solution!

Kim

[Jo]

Thanks for the pics, Jo.  I appreciate seeing your storage system.  And you certainly have a lot of metal to store!  How'd you get it for free?  That doesn't look like 'free' metal to me.  I don't have any supplier of free stuff like that!  Sure, I've gotten a piece here or there from some cast-off item, but nothing like that kind of selection!  Only a few small sheets of aluminum or a little mystery metal rod or something.  Nothing like that huge inventory!

The story goes: In a past life I was married  to a guy who was in charge of the local apprentice school.. each year they brought the materials for the number of apprentices they expected but always a few dropped out and that meant the materials the store man had prepared for the apprentices that left was scrap so they threw it out  I got to hear about this so made friends with the Storeman and the scrap came my way.. in the end they closed the apprentice school and everything had to go in the skip so I helped

The HE30 came from Bluechip. Thank you Dave  The space grade Dural came from the scrap bin outside the satellite machine shop when I was an apprentice.

I normally buy the noggins = the end of bars. I can often get rather big noggins like the Gypsy Major crankshaft at little cost 

Jo

[Bluechip]

The HE30 came from Bluechip. Thank you Dave 

Jo

A fair bit of that Ally is ex - the late Norman. A good friend, Officer & Gentleman. 

Maybe you should offer up a modest libation of thanks to the lad ..  . Sure he'd appreciate it.

Dave  ( Currently faffing about with the settings on his new dash-cam. Not too sure about this 'recording the current speed' malarkey     I can imagine it might not be to my advantage in some circumstances ...  :   ) 

[Jasonb]

I tend to buy imperial stock in 2ft lengths and metric is 1m (often 3m cut into 1m for postage) and these go into a couple of pigeon hole units behind the underbench cabinets



Once they get down to 12" long they are better off stored in draws, these couple keep my mostly bright steel





Non ferrous go into another draw unit







Sheet goes in a gap at the side of the lathe



I don't like to keep much material out in the open as despite what some people may say I tend to machine quite a bit of cast iron and don't like having everything I go to pick up covered in a film of iron dust, same goes with tooling. Having said that the large CI billets and blocks stand on the bench behind the mill as that is dead space.

[Dave Otto]

Here is a picture of my disorganized metal storage. Standard industrial shelving with some cubbyholes and bins added; I really need to spend some time and do some organizing. The shelves are 2ft deep so that is what I purchase and/or cut my round stock to. I try to keep 6061 aluminum, 12L14, and 303ss in stock up to 2" diameter. I also keep a good selection of steel hex and brass rounds up to an inch.
Everything else just kind of happens over time.


Dave
 

[Kim]

Thanks for the pics Jason.  Looks like you make good use of the nooks & crannies to store your metal stock!

Dave, I'll take your disorganization any day! that looks pretty well organized to me!  What have you made your little pigeon holes out of?  It certainly looks very nice.

Kim

[Tennessee Whiskey]

Great design I think Kim. I would agree on the wheels also. There are lots of low profile choices out there in about any load range. I’m with you on Dave’s disorganization; he can come over and disorganize mine anytime 

Cletus

[zeeprogrammer]

I have something similar to Gerrit's but made of wood and screwed to a wall.
The problem is the mix of different lengths makes the pieces lean in all directions.
I like the angle idea of Kim's but it takes more space.
I also like Gerrit's idea of using wheels.

The other problem I had was shorter lengths. I like Jason's idea. I need to investigate that.
Even then, I think I want the drawers to be on a movable platform like Gerrit's idea.

I've been striving to have as much stuff as I can on wheels so I can move things around.
Some things don't make sense like the mill, lathe, and lab benches because they are too heavy or I'm concerned about movement.

I do wonder about my workbenches though. They are the harbor freight ones intended for wood working.
I'm thinking of setting them on some heavy duty wheels. I use them for assembly or just setting things on.
Although one of them has a vise on it that I use for various purposes including a hacksaw. Perhaps locking wheels would be better.

This reminds me of when I was a kid. I was changing my room every couple of weeks.
Well...when I had a large enough room. We moved a lot (Dad was military) and in some rooms all you had space for was a bed.

[Robert Hornby]

For shorter bars, say under 400mm I utilised some PVC pipe.



Bob