The AikiHomestead
Our Lifestyle Blog as We Create a Homestead in Northern Ontario
2018-08-07
A Rack For Milled Lumber
As you probably remember from the post about me starting up the sawmill again, I’ve just been throwing the 2×4’s willy-nilly all over the ground in an effort to make a big dent in the skidway.After the pile started to get really unruly looking though, I decided it was time to put that stuff on a rack neatly for aesthetic, quality, safety and space reasons.
I planned out a complicated rack that I could build using gas pipe and gas pipe fittings and headed in to Home Depot.
Unfortunately, when I arrived, they had only a fraction of the types of fittings I would have needed, and even less of the pipe in the sizes I wanted. On top of that, a mental calculation of cost made it less and less attractive.
I headed down to storage solutions and then figured that, while sub-optimal, a heavy duty storage rack should still be able to be pressed into service. As such, I purchased the largest, heaviest duty one they had and headed home.
While Donna and Kenny pursued their chores at the cabin, I assembled the racking on a level area really close to the mill, and began to load up the product I had already cut. I was able to fit five boards across, then a sticker, and then repeat this process for three layers. This times four shelves gave me space for theoretically 60 boards at a time. Realistically, I lost a number of slots where the diagonal braces spanned the ends, but I also made up a number of slots on the top shelf which I could pile higher. I also found that I could even pile a couple boards outside the shelving on the protruding ends of the stickers.
All in all, it sure has cleaned up the mill area, and I trust that it will help keep the boards I cut straighter than they would be just piled on the ground. I’ll report back if there are any issues.