Question how do you store substrates?

[netsol]

how does everyone store 48" x 96" substrates? (sintra, coro, acrylite)

we are getting busy enough now i want to have better storage so we can start taking advantage of price breaks

we have 48 x 96 wooden shelves that were in place when we moved in, but they have 2x4 uprights impinging the 48x96 flat surface

i can correct this, by moving the uprights out but not sure if doing so & adding a shelf every 8" horizontally would be my best bet

what has everyone else done?

 

[balstestrat]

Pretty usual type of setup. Maybe not so heavy duty as you lose quite a bit of space as height to the beams.
Plywood on the bottom.

 

[Gino]

For flatbed substrates, we built a shelf system 6' x 10' with about 10" or 12" in between. There's a buncha cutoffs in it at the moment, but generally the 60" stuff is at the top.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

I built a 10' long roll around A frame. I don't stock much more than I need. If the price goes up then the customer pays more. It's also a pita to get the backing off of material that has been sitting around for an extended period of time like on acrylic, acm and painted aluminum sheet.

 

[Billct2]

We have them stored everyway you can think of. Coro and pvc on flat racks since it will bend. We have an old home depot type vertical rack on wheels that gets acm, plastics, thick pvc. A lot of stuff never gets past leaning on the wall after unloading since it goes right into production. And don't even get me going about storing cut offs, it's a pita but worth it. We only buy coro and pvc in quantity, and occasionaly acm if theres a good sale. When I worked in a shop that had larger volume we built a set of heavy racks like Ginos that held up to 4x10s

 

[Gino]

As he mentioned, cut offs......... don't be throwing them away. That is your gravy. It's been paid for once and when ya go to make a small sign, ya don't hafta cut down a full sheet and ya get paid all over again for it. Pretty much, anything 12" x 12" of larger goes into another large racking system. We have storage areas for 12" by whatever, 24" by whatever and 36" by whatever. When ya take one out and only use a partial, it might go back into a different area, but ya get to charge for it all over.... AGAIN.

 

[jfiscus]

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Thank you for sharing!

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Our solution is here, works well for us, as we do not stock a lot of any particular substrate, but a lot of different substrates.

 

[Geneva Olson]

Pretty usual type of setup. Maybe not so heavy duty as you lose quite a bit of space as height to the beams.
Plywood on the bottom.


View attachment 157178

thats why plywood prices went up. thanks a lot.

 

[ProColorGraphics]

I couldn't get anyone locally to build me a shelf that I wanted, so I went with a pallet rack and a lot of support braces for shelves. I do wish I could have gotten narrower ones so they didn't take up so much space.

 

[McDonald Signs]

I had this metal rack welded up for me about 15yrs ago all out of 1in x 1in Square Steel Tubing.
It holds alot of 4ft x 8ft Aluminum, PVC, Coro Etc sheets and doesn't take up much space. Real easy to slide panels in & out since the sheets are vertical.

 

[ChicagoGraphics]

Why not just keep the matriels on the skid it came on, unless you have limited space

 

[Mr. Signboy]

Just recently installed an overhead storage rack that raises to the ceiling when we don’t need it. When we need sheet stock it uses a remote and drops to the floor. I installed it right behind out flatbed printer so sheets can be dragged right from the rack onto the table and then sent back to the ceiling or kept there for continuous feeding. This one was test and it went well, I plan on installing 5-6 more in the near future and free up all available floor space. I highly recommend something like this.

 

[netsol]

Mr signboy, i love it!
I always say i love to turn my solution into an engineering project, but i see i am in the presence of a master.

 

[CanuckSigns]

Just recently installed an overhead storage rack that raises to the ceiling when we don’t need it. When we need sheet stock it uses a remote and drops to the floor. I installed it right behind out flatbed printer so sheets can be dragged right from the rack onto the table and then sent back to the ceiling or kept there for continuous feeding. This one was test and it went well, I plan on installing 5-6 more in the near future and free up all available floor space. I highly recommend something like this.

I like this idea, but I would be constantly worried it would fall and kill someone.

 

[Mr. Signboy]

Mr signboy, i love it!
I always say i love to turn my solution into an engineering project, but i see i am in the presence of a master.

I’m far from a master lol, but thank you.

 

[Mr. Signboy]

I like this idea, but I would be constantly worried it would fall and kill someone.

This was definitely a concern, but, the hardware holding it up there could probably support a tank. It has multiple layers of overkill attachments so I can sleep at night.

 

[2B]

I had this metal rack welded up for me about 15yrs ago all out of 1in x 1in Square Steel Tubing.
It holds alot of 4ft x 8ft Aluminum, PVC, Coro Etc sheets and doesn't take up much space. Real easy to slide panels in & out since the sheets are vertical.

We also have ours in a short edge vertical configuration.
In addition, we put oversized caster wheels to move as needed

 

[Notarealsignguy]

Just recently installed an overhead storage rack that raises to the ceiling when we don’t need it. When we need sheet stock it uses a remote and drops to the floor. I installed it right behind out flatbed printer so sheets can be dragged right from the rack onto the table and then sent back to the ceiling or kept there for continuous feeding. This one was test and it went well, I plan on installing 5-6 more in the near future and free up all available floor space. I highly recommend something like this.

Very impressive. The wheels are turning now, wish I never saw it haha

 

[Mr. Signboy]

I keep it on the pallet, stuck in the yard, coro goes in the vinyl room on edge, aluminum in the cutting room on edge, scraps in an ever growing pile that was on edge... Haven't gotten as far as reracking the scrap this inventory season, that will likely be tomorrow.
God I love the idea of a suspended pallet, but I'd think to load it with 5x10x.090 sheets, and that doesn't make me want to walk under it. I'm curious, has you insurance company spotted it yet? They tend to have hangups about suspended loads. May want to at least make a yellow line under the area, just to point out and say 'of course nobody walks there....'

That’s actually not a bad idea, I will make a nice reflective floor decal marking the area to stay clear. Thanks for the input! As far as aluminum sheets, I probably wouldn’t use that specific rack for something that heavy. I believe it’s rated for 600lbs, I know it would lift more but I’m not really interested in pushing it. We mainly store ACM, sintra, corex, etc up there. We have 3 more smaller ones that are only rated for about 120lbs. We use those for all of our anti-fatigue floor mats. They aren’t really heavy but they take up quite a bit of room. We currently don’t use much aluminum, we are mainly a printing company,but soon will be purchasing a couple large lasers and will need to come up with a solution for aluminum sheets. When the time comes I’ll likely hire someone to build a beefy version of that rack that can handle a lot of weight. Once you start storing stuff on the ceiling it’s hard to go back to the floor lol.

 

[ProSignTN]

The first shop I ever worked in had been an old sign & glass company. Naturally everything was stored vertical, except for the thousands of old pounce patterns. They were above the layout tables in a chicken wire cage.. Sorry these are the best pics have of this rack. The rack only has a 4'x8' footprint and was 9' tall. Because it wasn't against the wall, it would hold 10' pieces and even 12' in a pinch. Maybe not great for a high volume shop, but I've always been a custom, one off shop and the design served me well for years.

Like Gino says, the drops are gravy. I saved everything. Need a test piece for paint? Got it. Need a 3/4" match-plate to set J bolts? Got it. Need an 8" x 96" piece of ACM, without using a whole sheet? Got it. Need a chunk of OSB to lay across a ditch to get the wheelbarrow in? Got it. I went through a fire and the soot ruined most everything in the rack. I remember taking it to the landfill and every time I chucked a piece, I was like there goes 10 dollars, there goes 15 dollars. and another 20 dollars.