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Do you have a love-hate relationship with sheet goods? Who
isn't enticed by particleboard, MDF and plywood, which are
dimensionally stable and stay relatively flat—something that
can't be said of wood? The readily available, uniform material
is like manna from heaven for large carcass work. Embrace
it and adore it; that is, until you have to store it, move
it, or cut it.
In
the perfect workshop, the sheet goods storage area is as close
as possible to the shop door, minimizing the effort needed
to move the materials into the shop. In my workshop, that
ideal location is at the end of my table saw out-feed path.
However, locating my storage area here would result in reducing
my out-feed path by three feet, something I was loath to do.
That got me thinking about a vertical storage rack design
with supports attached to the floor and ceiling, with nothing
in between. I could easily use all of the out-feed space when
needed by simply moving the sheet goods off the rack.
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| The
rack provides a versatile and cost-efficient solution
to sheet goods storage. |
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The
ceiling support arms swing out of the way so that sheets
can be easily loaded onto the rack. |
Following
through with this idea, I created a sheet goods storage rack
consisting of a 2-1/4" raised platform on the floor butted
up against and fastened to a wall that the sheet goods rest
on. The platform is constructed of a 2x4 grid with a plywood
top that's covered with a sheet of ultra-high molecular weight
(UHMW) plastic fastened with counter-sunk screws. The slippery
plastic covering allows for heavy MDF sheets to slide in and
out of the rack with little resistance, making loading and
unloading a breeze. The dimensions of the platform are 2'x3',
which means that a 4'x8' sheet sitting in the rack hangs over
either end of the platform, providing a good handhold. A raised
lip on the front of the platform keeps the sheets from sliding
off the slippery plastic.
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| The
raised platform is covered with a sheet of UHMW plastic,
which allows heavy sheets to slide on and off of the rack
easily. |
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