 |
The first thing I had to do was attach the vertical supports
to the wall. To do this I bought 5/16" x 6" long lag bolts
and washers. I used 4 bolts per support and concentrated them towards
the top. |
 |
Here's a close-up of the supporting bolts. I counter
sunk each bolt. You'll definitely need a corded drill or a hammer
drill to do this
project. |
 |
The next step was to attach all the supports. I
measured the height for the far left and far right supports. Then I
used an 8' straight edge to determine the height of all the middle
supports. If you look closely you can see that the supports are made
of a 3/4" plywood and 2x4 sandwich. I used a 5/16" through
bolt and a lot of wood glue to hold the horizontal support to the vertical
support. I've tried sitting my 175lb body on a single support and
bouncing around. It didn't give any hint that it was going to
give. I can't imagine a wood load across 7 of these that it couldn't
hold. I used glue and three screws on each side to hold the sandwich
together. |
 |
I saw a tip in a woodworking magazine where the guy said
that after 10 years in his shop he just realized that he was wasting
space. He used 1/4" plywood to create a shelf under each rack
level. I thought it was a good idea so I planned it into my
design. If this picture was more recent you would see that I use the
shelves to store magazines, books, sticklers, etc. Also, you would
see that I painted the shop. It's a good idea to paint before you put
too much on your walls. It was a much harder job that it would have
been if I did it right away. |
 |
I didn't get around to building a plywood rack
until about a year after I finished the lumber rack. It's a simple
rack, most of it is butt joints except the three 8' long sheets in the
front, middle, and back sit in grooves. There is room for about 13
full sheets but I suspect I'll also be keeping large cut off sheets there
too. The front has three compartments for smaller sheets. |
 |
This is a side view. Originally I was
going to use a pair of door hinges to mount it too the wall. However,
it stands pretty well on its own and having it free standing gives me the
ability to wheel it over to the truck just in case I don't feel like hauling
sheet after sheet to the back of the shop. |
