posted
In 17 years I have yet to come up with a good way to store sheet stock. It ends up leaning against every wall in the shop. After a while you don't even know what you have anymore. I don't know how many sheets of 4x8 mdo, dibond, HDU, Poly, .040, PVC, and coro I have that have 3 x 5 signs or smaller cut from them.
Does anyone have any photos or suggestions of how you store you materials?
-------------------- Jerry VanHorn, Pres. Pure Sports Designs, LLC Pro Sign Design / United Wholesale Signs www.prosigndesign.comwww.unitedwholesalesigns.com West Liberty, OH 937-465-0595 866-942-3990 Since 1990 Posts: 925 | From: West :Liberty, OH | Registered: May 2004
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posted
i hear ya on that!!! i have a friend who loves to organize, so i have him come over and whip my sorry asss into shape. he separates all my scraps into piles by substrate & size. when he's done i see what i have. even though its just in piles leaning up against my walls, i can take an inventory of it and when i have some smaller stuff to do i go to the pile. i do have 3 slots that i can slide 4x8s into. i could use a more long term solution on this so i'm curious what the real organized folks do.
[ March 09, 2007, 09:35 AM: Message edited by: KARYN BUSH ]
-------------------- Karyn Bush Simply Not Ordinary, LLC Bartlett, NH 603-383-9955 www.snosigns.com info@snosigns.com Posts: 3516 | From: Bartlett, NH USA | Registered: Jan 2001
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posted
I have a room that I store all my 4x8 sheet stock in. I put the lighter stuff in the back, working the heavier stuff forward and the Dibond is in the very front. I mark D/F on double-faced Dibond or if it's a color other than white I write that on it (in blue Stabillo of course). I have three off-cut stacks against the wall also, one that is 4' wide, one that is 2-3' wide and one that is less than 2' by whatever length. If I have plenty of larger stuff I don't save smaller scraps and if it's smaller than 12 x 18 it gets tossed regardless. This stuff breeds when you turn out the lights; you come in the next day and half the room is taken up with useless trash that you're paying $65 SF/Yr to store. The panel storage opens into the panel saw room too so that's really nice.
-------------------- Ricky Jackson Signs Now 614 Russell Parkway Warner Robins, GA (478) 923-7722 signpimp50@hotmail.com
"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Issac Newton Posts: 3528 | From: Warner Robins, GA | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Jerry, here are sa couple pictures of what we did. I think we all run into this problem, and since we moved, we were destined to be organized. So we took some 2x4's and plywood and constructed dividers for our materials.
Hope this give you an idea. It keeps it out of the way and in easy view.
posted
Storing offcuts is a challenge. You need to cull them regularly. We have adapted standard industrial shelving to store full sheets and in the middle built a pigeon hole rack for smaller pieces. Like any system, it breaks down if not kept up.
posted
i'm just a one-guy shop, so I don't have much lying around.
i have one shelf and three stacks. the shelf holds anything under 24" x 24" (mostly aluminum blanks). beneath the shelf is anything up to 24" x 48". next to that is a pile of the bigger stuff.
sorting: the tallest stuff in the back. if you have two pieces the same height, the narrow one is in front of the wider one. in one quick look i can tell if i have something the size i need. yeah, i gotta move a few pieces to get to it, but i'm only moving things if i know i got what i want.
i mix all the materials - Dibond, MDO, Sintra, acryllic. If what I need is 4' x 3' its often faster/cheaper/easier to use up that "scrap" of Dibond than to order and cut down a whole sheet of MDO (and end up with even more scraps...)
the other thing i do is trim my cutoffs to "standard" sizes. that 37" x 27" piece becomes 3' x 2' before i stick it into storage. (I cut it down at the same time i was cutting the original panel, since that's when i'm running the saw.)
-------------------- :: Scooter Marriner :: :: Coyote Signs :: :: Oakland, CA :: :: still a beginner :: :: Posts: 1356 | From: Oakland (and San Francisco) | Registered: Mar 2001
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