Wood Storage Idea

[Osmosis]

I have been meaning to do this for quite a while but just got around to it. If you are like me and most model builders I know there is just no piece of wood that is truly scrap. So I made this today, a quick and dirty wood storage solution. It is made from some 3" cardboard shipping tube that we get SS tubing in at work and a couple of pieces of plywood that I had laying around (not scrap!).

Cost of Materials $0.00  And it made the Admiral very happy, Priceless!

[Bob Blarney]

That's a neat solution.  PVC pipe also works, but cutting it is somewhat more difficult.

[No Idea]

4 hours ago, Bob Blarney said:

That's a neat solution.  PVC pipe also works, but cutting it is somewhat more difficult.

Hi Bob this is exactly what I do - I use 4" PVC waste pipe with a stop on the end.  Having said that I think that Arts solution is the same but far cheaper and easier too.

[wefalck]

I would give the cardboard tubes a good coat of sanding filler to present the edges from fraying. Also looks neater.

[andante]

A nice and easy way to store the strips if we have limited space. Only one thing - the tube does not prevent the wood from warping or bowing. I suppose the best option would be by stacking them horizontally like in the lumber yard. Not so easy in a small scale.

Edited October 31, 2018 by andante
Typo.

[mtaylor]

Here's a picture of my solution.   PVC fence post liners from the home improvement store. Cut to length and stacked.  

 

[Maury S]

I think you will find the tall strips will take on a bend if stored vertically.  (been there, done that.)  The wood should be stored flat (use tubes or boxes if you like to keep pieces sorted by size.)

Maury

[wefalck]

If you don't have the space for horizontal storage, you can also tie the thin strips together with a piece of string or a rubber band - together they will not bend.

 

I made myself a narrow open rack with shallow shelves and some vertical battens along the length to keep the stuff in. That allows me to store the stuff according to material, while being able to retrieve shorter pieces that have been pushed in by accident.

 

Another option would be to make the tubes, as in Mark's picture, detachable so that you can shake them in order to get small pieces out.

 

For some years I kept narrow (ca. 5 cm diameter) paper tubes loose in a box upright - the narrow tubes prevented the bending and I could take them out to rattle them for retrieving short pieces. Apart from lack of floor-space it was difficult to handle those tubes, in which I kept my steel and brass stock, hence the other solution.

[pythagoras]

Here is a pic of my storage rack. Drawer slides from the Home Depot, one quarter inch pegboard and some quarter inch dowels!

The dividers are held down by short pieces of dowels glued in their bottoms and are adjustable to accommodate the quantity of each 

dimension. It's a little more costly and time consuming to make, but its location is perfect and the strips store flat. I also spread those moisture absorbent packages around and I have never had a warping problem.

 

Pythagoras (Tom)            Hello Art

[wefalck]

Good idea, but you need a space at least 1 m deep, considering the common lenght of stock. In the next incarnation of my workshop I may place something like this behind cupboards next to the door, to be accessed from the narrow side. Or, store the stuff in a wide, but narrow cupboard with such drawers ...

[Osmosis]

Hello Tom,

 

Ah, if only I had the room. I am limited to an 8'x8' room that also has to house my other hobby (rc sailing) as well as anything the Admiral does not want laying about the rest of the house. But some day.

 

What is that on your workbench Tom?

 

Best Regards,

[Kevin53]

When building my first wooden ship kit, I realized a needed a way to organize the scale lumber by size.  I decided on a lumber tray to store the stock horizontally to prevent warpage, to allow easy access to less than full length pieces, and to minimize the space required.  As I was unable to find anything commercially that met my requirements, I designed this lumber tray out of inexpensive chipboard (a type of dense thick cardboard).

 

 

This can be made to any size, but I chose 10"x25"x1" so it would fit inside the box that the ship kit came in to make it easy to store.  The attached pdf file is a measured drawing of the tray.  

 

Lumber Tray.pdf

 

 

I used 30 ply All-Purpose Chipboard (0.10 inches thick) for rigidity.  The source I used was Blick Art Materials (dickblick.com).  The chipboard was cut with a straight edge and a hobby knife.  The pieces were glued with PVA.  Be sure to glue the divider strips to the base as well as to the ends of the tray.  A label strip is added to one side to identify the lumber sizes.

 

Edited January 30, 2020 by Kevin53
Corrected photo type to jpeg

[wefalck]

There seems tobe a problem with your pictures ...

[Kevin53]

Sorry, I used the wrong picture type.  It should be better now.

[Marco_van_H]

My home-made solution to an ever growing problem.

[Jaager]

3 hours ago, Marco_van_H said:

My home-made solution

I did and still have hold over using a very similar method.  A problem with it is gravity.  The sticks bend.

Flat is better.

For my framing stock I use this:

They used to be 24" long - my preferred stock length - easier to handle than the 8' length it is in the lumber yard.

~ $2 each.

I use old school chalk to mark each stick with its thickness.  Blue chalk is persistent.

 

These can be handy for 12" or less - the long dividers are fixed, but the cross dividers are temporary.

[GGibson]

I saw Kevin53's solution a few months ago in a post above , and "stole" it.  Had to find a bigger container than an old kit box, however...

 

[Daniel Kimmer]

Wow, some great ideas in this string of post on how to store spare planking and lumber, sure beats the couple of small barrels I use.  I like the cardboard tube idea.  I have some spare PVC short plumbing pieces that were from a major replumbing of a 1900 built home and I think I may try to use them.  I'm thinking if I cut the PVC to the same angle configuration as the cardboard and use end caps to secure them to a board I could make a pretty good storage system.  If I'm successful and if it does not look too bad, I'll post a few photos.

[kgstakes]

Glad I found this, I'm just using the box that the model came in for the wood storage and yeah sometimes have to hunt for the right "lumber" to use and I do have them some what separated out but not all of it.

 

I did go buy another (I have many) small parts containers (like jaager has) and sorted all the metal casting parts out so I can just grab and paint them ahead of when I use them.

 

As far as other lumber storage I made a cubed box that I could put all my scale lumber in but between moves (many) it has disappeared.  So what I've been using (because I haven't built something better) is a piece of acrylic to support all my HO scale strip wood.  Works with a rubber band around it but you still have to "hunt" for what you want.  Some day I will make a storage box again for all my strip wood.

 

What I have for my brass stock is very similar to the others with the cardboard tubes.  My are from the fax machine roll paper (yeah still have a fax machine, why???) any way, I store the brass in them by size and it will fit upright in one of my workbench drawers.

 

Great Ideas here, never even thought about using plastic fencing material.  Have to look into that.  I've seen the PVC pipe used for storage that's a good idea too.

 

Keep up the great work everyone, I'm learning something every time I come here !!!!