# Raw materials rack, shop organization



## Swede

A while back, we had a thread about how to store raw stock. I had promised some pictures but lost the original thread. Anyway, maybe this will give somebody some ideas.

The rack is constructed of standard timber and peg board to create division areas (and also hang stuff on the peg board), thin-walled PVC pipe in 3" and 4" diameters, and four caster wheels. If you do the casters, buy some heavy-duty ones because this thing fully loaded probably weighs in at a few hundred pounds.

There is space top and bottom, away from the pigeon hole section, for bulk or sheet stock. A little metal cabinet contains spring wire rolls in the bottom. The vertical supports extend above the top shelf to form two side walls. There is also a section for sheet stock.

The main part is the PVC pipe pigeon holes. You can't have too many... they are really useful. They are labeled as well, describing the contents. Various steel and bronze alloys get separate holes, as do aluminum. There is even room for some plastics.












End mills: At any sporting goods store, they sell these things called "reloading blocks" which guys use for cartridges, and they happily come in different hole sizes, perfect for end mills.











I got tired of fiddling with tap, clearance drills, counterbores, and the taps themselves, and finally drilled up a system into a scrap of aluminum. I use this thing all the time.






I did something almost identical for my reamers. For the Imperial major sizes, like .250, over the years I've collected over/under reamers, so I organized them by size. The .250" row will have 0.248, 0.249, 0.251" etc. 

R-8 Shanked tools live in a cabinet. The black racks inside are military surplus cannon shell (25mm, I believe) separators! They happen to hold R8 tools with ease. Lots of great shop organization stuff can be found in surplus stores.






Finally, fasteners and the like live in these metal pull-drawers. Not the cheapest, but my shop life almost revolves around these drawers, and the plastic boxes that live in a shelf above them. It's nice to have a large number of identical boxes; they stack well.











That's it for now. All of my better stuff resides in cheap wooden kitchen cabinets I installed myself, as the wood does a great job of keeping things corrosion free. My shop is unheated, and corrosion can be a hassle.

I've found over the years that a well-organized shop is a pleasure to work in, and I've put a lot of effort into making mine at least a bit organized.


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## dalem9

Really looks nice . Great job .Dale


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## nevadablue

Very nice. I am stealing the stock rack idea. I was going to use some plastic pipe I have on hand, now I know how to use it. 

Are you the 5 Bears Swede that I know? Good to see you again!


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## bearcar1

Five Bears??????  Well I guess it is better than Two Dogs...... Rof} Rof} Rof}


BC1
Jim


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## nevadablue

Slightly... :

http://www.5bears.com/index.htm


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## Swede

;D

The "5 Bears" thing came from my last name, which means "bear" in my ancestors' home. I have 3 children. Thus 5 Bears. There are millions of companies and organizations with weirder names. 

I formed an LLC years ago with the thought of marketing a turbojet controller I designed. I had the mental image of some guy crashing his 150 mph F-15 model into a crowd and blaming the controller. In the end, I never did market the stupid thing, because I knew there would be nasty liability issues. I've got components for 50 FADEC controllers gathering dust in my shop.

NevadaBlue - good to see you!


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## steamer

I thought your avitar looked familiar! Great fan of your site Swede.

I like your stock rack....I think I'll have to copy that as mine has gotten out of hand.

I think I could benefit from taking some of it to the scrapper.

Dave


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