El Concejo

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Three Shopmade Lumber Rack Designs

Two layers of ³⁄⁴-in. plywood are glued and screwed to short lengths of 2×4s.

Standards are lag bolted to the walls.

Three screws on each side of the brackets secure them to 2×4 standards.

Brackets can be relocated on the standards as necessary.

Lag bolts mount brackets to 2×4 wall studs of unpaneled walls.

Brackets are made from two layers of ³⁄⁴-in.

plywood sandwiched together or cut from 2×6 lumber.

Brackets are cut lengths or ³⁄⁴-in.

pipe.

Pocket holes bored into the edge of an assembled 2×6 sandwich allow the standards to be mounted to the wall with lag bolts.

Stock Storage

Dadoes are cut into the faces of a pair of 2x6s to make the rack standards.

radial-arm saw or cutoff saw bench.

This allows you to pull long boards off the rack as they are needed and cut them to length before they are ripped and machined into parts. (See also

“Accommodating Work Flow,” on p. 130.) When planning your lumber storage, you might also want to designate sepa-rate areas for short-term and long-term lumber storage. Short-term storage is for

wood that will soon be used for a project, so it should provide ready access and make it easy to pull boards from the stack as they are needed. Long-term storage is for wood that’s stashed away for “some-day.” These are the boards and planks you buy because, even though you didn’t have a particular need for that 6/4 flame-grained bubinga, it was just too beautiful to pass up (most woodworkers I know are tree-huggers at heart). You might even want to consider displaying these boards instead of hiding them away because chances are you’ll never develop the nerve to actually cut up such treasures, so you might as well enjoy seeing them.

Green lumber If you’re a woodturner, chair bodger, rustic furniture maker, or just like to save money by cutting and drying your own lumber, you can save space inside your shop by storing green lumber outside. Rough burls, logs and Mounting a lumber rack directly

above a cutoff saw bench lets you pull boards off and cut them to length as they’re needed. This unique rack has supports that attach directly to the shop’s frame members with strong mortise-and-tenon joinery.

English woodworker Alec McCurdy stickered and dried the stash of locally cut lumber he used for building cabinets and musical instruments under an open, metal-roofed shed next to his small country shop.

Storing Tools, Lumber, and Supplies

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branches, and freshly cut roughsawn lumber can be stacked outdoors to dry in most climates. They need to be stacked off the ground and stickered properly for good air circulation. They should also be covered to keep the rain off and to pre-vent direct sunlight from causing cracks and checks. While a sturdy tarp can pro-vide adequate coverage, building a small lean-to-style shed near or beside your shop will provide a safe place to store green lumber.

Veneer STorage

Because it is thin and fragile, sliced or sawn wood veneers need to be stored differently from regular lumber. Veneer sheets (called leaves) and flitches (stacks of consecutively cut leaves) need to be completely supported to prevent them from curling and buckling. One strategy is to stack all of your veneers on a piece of plywood that’s slightly longer and wider than the largest leaf. Set another piece of plywood atop the stack and flatten the entire bundle using twine or tape. Store your veneer “sandwich” on a horizontal rack, shelf, or other cool, dry place—veneers are subject to crack-ing and splittcrack-ing if exposed to excessive heat or dryness. Marquetry expert Pat Edwards created a cool, dry storage space next to his shop in which he keeps his stock of expensive and rare veneers (see the bottom photo at right). Edward’s home-made “veneer cave” is built from stacks of concrete blocks, with the veneer flitches set atop a layer of clean, dry sand.

Protect expensive veneers from damage during storage by sandwiching them between a pair of plywood panels slightly larger than the veneer leaves.

Built from dry-stacked concrete blocks filled with sand, Pat Edwards’s 16-ft.-long “veneer cave” provides safe storage for the dozens of flitches of rare and expensive veneers it contains (security is provided by shop dog, Nikki).

Stock Storage

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SToring CuToffS and SCraPS

Truly one of the most difficult storage problems in most shops is what to do with wood pieces that fall into the “too small for most parts but too big to get rid of” size range. As wood gets more and more expensive to buy, woodworkers are compelled to save little offcuts and trimmings, which are difficult to store in a way that keeps them organized and neat and allows you to find just the right piece when you want it.

Portable scrap bin Bins and cubbies for cutoffs can be built into any available nook or cranny in the shop: under coun-ters and benches, in corners and closets, and in attics and lofts. If you want to

keep your scraps organized yet portable, consider building a mobile container, such as the one shown in “A Portable