storage of short offcuts?

G'day,

I can't imagine I am alone in this... I have a large (and growing) collection of offcuts (shorts) - peices of steel, aluminium, brass, etc which are "that will be useful" category.

Some are only 10mm in length, others as long as 900mm. The diameters range from 4mm to 180mm. The weight of them all is in the hundreds of Kg range.

I'm looking for an suggestion on how to store them so they can be accessed and used, and hopefully with a manageable system of handling the weight. I am leaning towards shelves or drawers sized to keep the weights per section down, but I'm hoping others out there have better ideas.

Thanks,

Des

I made a bench with storage like this , the drawers hold short offcuts and the sections under them hold stuff up to 600mm any longer than that it goes up in the rafters . Not shown is the slide out unit that goes under the table and it holds my heavy stuff in three seperate bays , one for steel or cast iron , one fo aluminium and the other for brass , bronze and copper.

Edited By XD 351 on 30/12/2018 07:57:40

For the longer lengths I use shelves with a lip on the front to stop stuff rolling off. The shelves are on very substantial brackets and have vertical supports down to the floor, it is surprising how much weight is soon on there. For the shorter stuff up to 400/500mm I have offcuts of 100mm x 150mm box section arranged on the lower shelf of industrial racking to form a "Pigeon box" arrangement. This is good for separating different grades. Really small stuff goes in to biscuit tins one for each grade. All the rest goes into a big plastic box and gets tipped out on the floor for a sort through !

I picked up an old wine bottle rack from a junk sale. Basically a couple of rows of wooden pigeon holes about 100mm square by 400mm long, where the bottles were laid down in them. Made of solid MDF board. Very handy for bits of "stock". Brass in one, hex bar in another, aluminum in another etc.

900mm long stuff etc I stand upright in a rack nailed to the end of a bench. Just a couple bits of wood to hold things upright.

Larger diam slices, bits of flat plate etc etc that add up to a lot of weight, I keep in some old plastic cat litter trays that slide underneath a bench straight on the floor.

Then there is an old metal military ammo or tool box of some sort about 600mm square outside the shed door, that is full of God only knows. And a bunch of 6+foot lengths of rusty scrap iron perched on a few concrete blocks behind that.

Whatever way to pick to store your offcuts, I have found it quite useful to write the specs on them (diameter, material type) using a CD marker pen.

* Danny M *

Good to see we all have this problem!

Here's mine..

medium long - up to 1.2m stuff , under the workbench - a real pain to get at, dark, on your knees, stretching deep among the spiders..

Same bench, just above, for short stock - white squarish holders are 90mm PVC rain downpipe.

Heavy drawers to the left of the short stock, all in the same workbench - lots of small 'stuff' in the drawers...

'Everything' rack to left of workbench..

Workshop has shelves ringing it about 400mm below ceiling height - the shelf struts are useful for long light stock.

The only neat and nice to use rack in the shop...Same PVC downpipe cut to various lengths and screwed to battens screwed to the wall

Even the woodshop suffers the problem..

Oh, and I have to oil/grease all the steel stuff else it turns to rust in a week..50m from the Atlantic Ocean..

Someone could get rich from a neat solution to all the mess..

Joe

Good to see you you are also a member of the stuff it anywhere club Joseph !

Geoff - Sideways again, photo not me!