Welding Tips and Tricks

Hello everyone,

I'm trying to organize my space and want to get my steel up off the floor and out of a pile and onto a rack. What are your thoughts on the span between supports to store primarily 1" sq and 2" sq tube 1/8" thick horizontally and prevent sagging/warping?

Thanks,

j

Are you working in your garage or a large fab shop?
Do you buy 20' lengths of tube?
How much do you typically have on hand?
Answers to questions like these should help you figure what you need. Think about what would be the shortest length you'd want to have on the rack, maybe a dedicated rack area to shorter lengths?

Hi Lt Badd,

I'm looking for a general rule of thumb of the distance between the supports to properly support the material so it doesn't sag and develop a curve in it. For example, if the general rule is a support every 4 feet and I want to build a rack to support 8' stock I would need the rack to have at least 3 "arms".

With wood the general rule is a support every 16" to keep boards from developing a warp or bow. I'm wondering if there is something similar for steel.

Thanks,

j

Depends on what steel. Flat bar I have on a solid shelf. Up to 2" square tubing I have a support every 4 feet, bigger stuff every 8 feet, 4 inch plus tubing will bridge 10-15 feet easily. For me it's more of a problem how to store the shorter cutoff pieces. If you have supports every 8 feet where do you put a 2 foot piece?

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Thanks for sharing your experience, JayWal. I was thinking along the same general lines and wanted to reach and gut check with others.

JayWal wrote:Depends on what steel. Flat bar I have on a solid shelf. Up to 2" square tubing I have a support every 4 feet, bigger stuff every 8 feet, 4 inch plus tubing will bridge 10-15 feet easily. For me it's more of a problem how to store the shorter cutoff pieces. If you have supports every 8 feet where do you put a 2 foot piece?

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Y'all either can use sky hooks or make a stand-up bracket for the shorter pieces. I did see that somewhere but since I'm so old I can't remember.

I ran out of sky hooks so I just throw all my short stuff on the same shelf and use racking for just the longer lengths

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I stand my short pieces up in an old 55 gal drum.

Here's my first attempt using leftovers laying around the garage:

Nice. I need to make a rack like that.
I noticed the wheels are underneath the rack a bit. Could it ever tip? I might have kept the wheels outside of the drip edge.
Nice design and execution.

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I have about 5-6ft of space between the spans.







I just recently added some extra height to keep more stuff off the floor

Simclardy wrote:Nice. I need to make a rack like that.
I noticed the wheels are underneath the rack a bit. Could it ever tip? I might have kept the wheels outside of the drip edge.
Nice design and execution.

Thank you, sir. Regarding the wheels/tippage, I think the picture is at a funky angle. The rack is a bit wider than it is tall and the wheels are at the far corners but centered on the 2x4s. Outside of extreme top- or edge-loading I'd be surprised to see it tip. Thought I guess anyone who had a rack of steel tip over would be "surprised"...