How to store heavy slabs for easy access and display

[WV Sawmiller]

 

 
Kind of hard to see but these are 2 new bins I built over the last couple of weeks but never took a picture. They are on the front wall under a couple of shelves. The floor steps down about 6" inches between the 2 bays and have about 7' of clearance.

   I got out today and built a door frame for another bay and partially covered it till I ran out of sheeting/siding. I need to cut another log to get enough siding to finish the door and the front wall.


 
    Here is the backside of the door after it was hung.



 

   Here is a front view of the door. I need about 17" more 4/4 sheeting to finish covering the door, and about 5' more to cover the rest of the wall and make the last door. I will wait till the Flea Market opens and my hardware vendor comes back to get 3 more hinges. He sells them for about $10 for a set of 3. At TSC or rural king they are about $40 and I am not in a rush for them.


 

   Here is an updated front view of the shed with more siding since the last picture. 

[jasonb]

WV

That turned into a nice looking shed.  Kudos to the design committee.

[Peter Drouin]

Nice shed. I make it easy on myself. I don't make them. ;D
Had one or two people looking for them this year is all.

[WV Sawmiller]

   I'll add some Pix when the Gallery work is done.

   We've had several inches of snow and not getting much done so I decided to go re-stack some spruce lumber I have been drying. I figured I'd stack in the new bins I finished last. I had one pallet of 7' X 3/4" X 8" boards with a foot or so of lumber on sticks and another most 8" but a few rows on 1/2" X 3" battens and a few odd sized 8/4 framing pieces. That stack on stickers was about 4' tall.

   I moved all the 3/4" stock into one of the new bins then emptied another smaller bin also of spruce. I put the 8/4 in the bin next to it but there was not a lot so I may put a separator board in there and use that bin for other stock too. I emptied both pallets and consolidated my spruce into the one bin. I used the newly emptied bin for some random poplar 4/4 stock and then restacked a bunch/several dozen 3' long stickers I had freed up.

[WV Sawmiller]

   No more building and no more pix till the gallery project is done but I have been reorganizing and using the new bins. Too much snow to drag down another log or saw any more but I have cleared out nearly one whole bay in my old shed. I had 2 pallets of 7' spruce and moved that to one bin and moved nearly 2 tall stacks of basswood that has been cut and stacked for 5 years next month. I finished filling a short corner bin with the 4/4 boards and have the 4" stock all re-stacked and nearly all the 3". I have a good bit of 8/4 stock left and still need to figure where to put it. I have a nearly empty bin partly 7' tall next to the spruce I will re-check tomorrow that may work. Worst case I'll move some short slabs there and put the basswood in the taller bin I emptied in the process. I see some of the thick pieces need to be resawed because of heart checking and splitting. I may resaw something like a 16/4 X20" wide into a 16/4 X6" and a 16/4 X 12". I hope to market it to carvers.

   The snow is a pain. I lost my truck key in it and yesterday I dropped a fat sharpie in the snow and lost it. Hopefully I will find both when the snow melts.

   Then I have to figure what to do with the now empty bay. I have a spruce log down I need to buck and saw  before it starts to go south on me when the weather improves.  I will probably stack it in that bay. I have a bunch of 5' WO logs for tomato stakes but they will fit in the newest floored bay under the shelves there.

   I also need to start a new stack of 2' stickers I have freed up in the process.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Still just piddling organizing my stockpiles. Today I finished moving all the basswood into the same area. I have all the 4/4 stock in one bin and all the 8/4. 12/4 & 16/4 in 2- side by side bins. I also stacked some short walnut pieces in other bins with more walnut. This totally emptied one bay in my original shed. I did stack my 2' stickers and rough stacked a bunch of short stock left over from other projects. I still have one empty bin in my new shed for future use.

   I will likely cut and sticker/stack some more spruce in the newly emptied bay when the snow melts and I can get back to milling.

[Wlmedley]

Howard, just wondering if you sticker your lumber that you are restacking if it has already air dried. I need to reorganize my lumber shed and I have quite a bit of 1" stuff that has been stickered for over a year and would be a lot easier to stack without stickers.

[WV Sawmiller]

Bill,

   When I restack in the bins they are vertical so they not stickered. For example the Basswood I moved had ben cut, stacked and stickered in Feb 2019.

   In the bay I just emptied I had 2 stacks of basswood on 5-6 pallets 2' wide and 8' long that were over 6' tall. On one side and the end I had 2 pallets of spruce 2' wide and from 4-5 feet tall. All the spruce went in one new bin and the basswood went into 3 bins. Vertical storage takes a lot less storage than horizontal and you can pull out individual boards without having to move anything off the top.

[Ljohnsaw]

If your 1" wood has been drying over a year, I'd say it's plenty dry enough to flat stack. If you don't have a moisture meter, touch your cheek (of you face 😉) to a board. If it is cold (er than the air), it probably has some residual moisture and should still be stickered.

[Wlmedley]

Thanks Howard,I'll have to do some measuring.Not sure if I have enough height to stand lumber up but may if I square up ends and cut split ends.Like you I'm getting tired of moving lumber to get what I need and then restacking it.ljohnsaw ,thanks for the info.I have heard that one year per inch to air dry but didn't know about stickering.Stickers take up a lot of room.

[WV Sawmiller]

Bill,

   Please remember this kind of storage is only for already dried (AD or KD) lumber or slabs and is not suitable for green, fresh cut lumber. Yes, height is huge factor in this kind of storage. I can't store anything much over 10' long and that only in a few of my tallest bins.

[WV Sawmiller]

test

[YellowHammer]

Test what? :D

[WV Sawmiller]

Just trying to get a post to stick. That one did the rest did not.

[WV Sawmiller]

Tried typing 9 mines of post here and db error. Lets see if one line works.

[WV Sawmiller]

Yep it worked that way so the topic should allow additions.

[WV Sawmiller]

I tried my 9 line post again. Still not working. Had deleted everything today., turned off pc and logged in fresh. Only 1 liners work. Added word. And another. And another. Try with enter key.
And on a new line.
And another new line.
No idea what causes the error sometime but not others.

[WV Sawmiller]

  I cleared a whole bay in my old storage barn by moving basswood and spruce into new vertical bins. I fabricated a couple of door pulls from 3" X 6-8 inch scrap and sawing 2 corners off at a 45 degree angle and nailing to the doors with the angled cut side against the door so it is easy to grip. Dirt cheap and works good.
  I made several crates up to 2' long from 1X6 bottom and ends and 3/8" X 2" lath strips for sides. Used them to store and transport short walnut pieces I sawed out on my RAS and table saw. I sell them to woodworkers for making cutting boards and chess boards and such. More to follow when I can post pictures.

(Been trying to post this for a week. Well done Lets check the photos now)

My photo is still too big (4.2 mb). I'll practice resizing and try later.

[WV Sawmiller]

Basswood stacked vertically

(Now I don't know how to rotate the picture 90 degrees like I used to do in the old gallery???)

[doc henderson]

Well, the forum is smarter than us.  when I click on the image, it auto rotates, and goes back when reduced.

Looks really good Howard.

the tops are a little uneven, but the bottoms are all the same length.  you must of trimmed the bottoms to length on your mill...

[WV Sawmiller]

May your children never leave and live at home till the end of your days!

[doc henderson]

;) :D

[WV Sawmiller]

Simple door pull

Crates for storing and transporting walnut cut-offs

[doc henderson]

Those look great.  they also look heavy, I am sure you considered door pull style handles on the ends, but may get in the way to store, or create a groove.  guys in WV are prob. just stronger than guys up north!  💪

maybe antler pulls.

edit: handles like your door pulls on your crates.

[WV Sawmiller]

   In Namibia at Roy's Rest Camp, they used Springbok horns and Warthog tusks as door pulls. They used Sprinbok hides on the floor for rugs and had old chamber pots with lids for trash cans in the rooms. The stools at the bar were old, cracked wooden mortars like you would find in use in any household in the local tribesmen's homes. The whole camp was full of character and I highly recommend it. We stopped there on our way to visit Etosha Game Park on June 26, 2010.

https://www.roys-rest-camp.com/