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Now that I'm back in my old shop space I have got my
hands full with projects and things to do before I can
actually build my first piece of furniture here, and it
all starts with a lumber rack. As you can see, I need one.
(groovy jazz music)
This lumber rack is very easy to build and it just requires
2x4s and plywood. You need to attach it to any open
space in your wall and here's the great thing:
you don't necessarily have to build it to my exact specs.
You could downsize things, you could make them bigger,
you could make the whole thing longer if you want to.
You customize it so it fits your personal needs.
Let's look at some of the materials
and we can get started building.
I just picked up my 2x4 stock from the local home center.
Keep in mind not all of these 2x4s are created equal.
Some piles are kiln-dried and some piles are not.
You can even take your hand and put it on the board
and you'll feel the stuff that's not kiln-dried
has a lot of moisture coming off of the surface.
It feels cold and clammy.
This on the other hand, a kiln-dried board,
generally feels room temperature.
You can feel a little bit of moisture in it, and especially
here in Arizona it's a little bit more noticeable but for
the most part the kiln-dried stock is really the way to go.
What that means to you is that it's a much more stable board.
Even though this one has a lot of the moisture driven out,
especially here in Arizona,
there's enough in here that this could cause me problems if
I wait too long to work with the board, so I bought my
boards this morning and I'm going to work with them today.
That way I don't have to worry about it.
If you do use the regular studs you absolutely
want to make sure you get those on the wall as
soon as possible because they will start to bend
and turn into pretzels on you. It's bad news.
The other thing to keep in mind is
the total length of these boards.
I like to have the back of the lumber rack made with single
boards, I don't really want multiple boards
for each vertical support, so get the length that
corresponds to how high you want your lumber rack to be.
If that's eight foot, great,
if you can get 10-footers and your ceiling can
accommodate 10-foot boards, go for the 10-footers.
Just make sure you get them long enough to
accommodate the size that you want to build.
Wood is stored in an insulated oven where the temperature,
humidity and air circulation are controlled.
Excess moisture is driven from the wood over the
course of weeks to a month, depending on the species.
Although you bought your 2x4s at the home center,
resist the urge to buy the plywood there as well.
Unfortunately that plywood tends to be loaded down with
moisture so as soon as you get it back to your shop,
within a couple hours instead of 4x8 beautiful flat
sheets you're going to have 4x8 potato chips.
They tend to really warp and it just
makes it miserable to work with.
Instead I recommend going to your hardwood dealer
and asking them about their shop-grade plywood.
Don't get the cabinet-grade stuff,
you don't need it for a project like this.
It's going to cost about the same thing that you
would pay at the local home center, about 40,
maybe 50 bucks a sheet but it's much more stable.
You're going to have more plies,
in fact mine has 11 internal plies.
It's a lot like baltic birch where it's a lot more
stable over time and it holds a screw really well.
40 to 50 bucks a sheet, you just can't beat it.
It just means you've got to make
one extra trip to a different store.
Behind me here is where our lumber rack is going to go.
The first order of business is to find the studs.
Our lumber rack needs to support a lot of weight
so it's absolutely vital that these vertical
members are attached to studs in the wall.
I use a standard stud finder to mark out the locations.
If you're having problems with this,
a lot of people don't realize you can calibrate this
very easily by putting it up against a known stud.
(beeping) You hear that, right?
Obviously I couldn't have a stud finder
in my hands and not do a joke.
I put the stud finder against the wall,
slide it over and when it hits a stud it makes
a sound and you'll see the red light and
it tells you where the center of the stud is.
Use that to ballpark the start and stop points.
From this point on if you have 16 inch centers
all you need to do is measure across every
16 inches and mark the location of the stud.
Keep in mind, some houses, some garages have 24 inch centers
so you're going to want to make a change to the plan.
I would make sure that you put your verticals,
if you have 24 inch centers,
put your vertical supports on every one of those studs.
If you go to the next level which would put a 48 inch gap,
a four foot gap between your verticals,
that's a little bit too much.
I don't feel comfortable doing that.
Put your verticals on every 24 inches.
For me, since mine are 16 inch centers I'm going to
put mine every 32 inches and I think that should be
enough to support the weight that we're looking for.
Go all the way down the line, mark the locations of your
studs and that's going to help us for every part of this
project when we need to anchor stuff to the wall.
The first thing I want to do is attach a support cleat
onto the wall. This is not only going to give us extra
support for each one of these vertical members but it's
also going to make it a lot easier for us to install them,
it helps us hold them in place.
Just a regular old 2x4 is going to work just fine for this.
I've marked already on it every 16 inches because I want to
attach it with a single screw into each stud down the line.
Before I drive the screw I'm going to pre-drill
just because I want to relieve some of that
material and I don't want to crack the board.
(drilling)
I'm just going to go along the
length and get each screw started.
I'm using 3 1/2 inch SPAX screws for these.
You can certainly use lag screws if you want to.
I'm going to drop this about 12 to 16 inches up from the floor.
I've got a little mark here but this doesn't have to
be absolutely perfect. I'm just going to get it close.
Line up my screw with a known location of one of my studs.
Now I can drive the screw.
Feels secure, that definitely went into a stud.
Now I can continue along the rest of the board but before
I do that I don't like to measure all the way across to
make sure it's perfect, I'm just going to use a level.
Hey, look at this. Scorpion.
To get the full length that I'm looking for
I did have to add one additional piece
because the size that I got wasn't long enough.
One 30 inch extra piece should cover it.
Just make sure that the level is on top and helps
me make sure that everything is nice and even.
Each one of our vertical pieces is going to receive a number
of screws from top to bottom to help secure it to the wall.
How many? It's up to you. I'm going to probably put
mine maybe every 16 to 20 inches all the way up.
Just make sure that you have one at
the top and one near the very bottom.
This way everything will be locked in place.
We're going to pre-drill again.
Once again I'm going to pre-start a screw here.
This one is very similar,
it's a SPAX screw but look how long it is.
It's actually 4 3/4 of an inch so it's plenty
long to go all the way through this board.
We'll recess it by quite a bit and we'll have a
really nice amount of a bite into our wall stud.
One thing I should have been a little bit more clear
about before is when you pre-drill your hole here
you're going to want to make sure that that whole is wide
enough to take the entire screw without it catching.
Not too wide but just wide enough.
This way when the screw hits the stud inside the wall
it will pull this entire assembly forward into the wall.
If this screw starts catching on too much material inside
our vertical support they won't really pull together.
You need to have this just barely loose fit here
and that should really help to pull it into the wall.
If you're lucky you'll be able to put the stud right up on
the cleat and start driving your screws into the wall.
My problem is I've got conduit to work around so I'm
going to need to mark the location and use my jigsaw to
cut a little scoop out that goes right around the pipe.
Perfect.
We'll start by attaching this with one screw near the bottom.
It doesn't have to be the very bottom but near the bottom.
Eyeballing at this point.
Now with one screw in place you want to check for level.
If one screw is in the stud, assuming that the stud is
straight up and down and nice and plumb you should
be able to put your level right against your board,
make sure the bubble is nice and centered,
and then drive the rest of the screws.
By the way, an impact driver is worth its
weight in gold on a project like this.
I'm going to continue this process working my
way down and installing one piece at a time.
(funky electronic guitar)
Our shelf supports themselves are going to be made
from a 2x4 that's sandwiched with two pieces of ply.
This one's loose, nothing is screwed together yet but let
me show you the components and how we make them.
The one side piece of ply goes down like so.
The 2x4 is added and it's flush with the front.
Then the other piece of ply comes in like this.
What that does is it creates almost a
open mortice or a little pocket here.
This is going to go into the vertical support.
To make the support brackets I cut up
a bunch of 2x4s to 18 inches in length.
For a full-sized rack you're going to need a lot of these.
I then used my track saw to slice six inch wide
strips from the full sheet of plywood.
I find it much easier to break down sheet goods
on the floor instead of at the table saw.
The plywood strips are then cut to 21 1/2 inches long.
Remember you're going to need two of these per support.
On each piece of plywood I place a mark 3 1/2 inches in
from the back edge and 3 1/2 inches down from the top.
Then I use a straight edge to connect the lines.
The taper can then be cut at the bandsaw
since the line doesn't have to be perfect.
If you're lucky enough to have something like a Festool MFT
you can certainly make quick work of the taper.
Once the part are cut they can
be assembled with glue and screws.
A level line across the studs helps me position the supports.
Before screwing the support in place be sure
that the stud is making full contact with the
vertical support for the ultimate in strength.
We don't want any gap here.
Now I drive two screws in from each side.
It may be overkill but I like to add an additional longer
screw to each side that goes all the way through the
vertical support and into the piece of ply on the other end.
Speaking of overkill I decided
to make a late game change here.
I added a few extra-long lag screws to each
vertical member just for some extra security.
Ah, now that feels better.
The next order of business is to construct the plywood cart.
The entire thing is made from 3/4 inch plywood and
the parts are cut to the specifications in the plan.
Each joint is put together with glue and countersunk screws.
It doesn't get simpler than this.
These parts are very large so get a helper if you can or
just get creative using some plywood scraps for extra support.
(upbeat jazz music)
Before we put this beast on the ground it's
a good idea to attach the casters while
we still have access to the underside.
The casters that I'm going to use,
I just picked these up at Home Depot.
They're really heavy duty, cost about 12 bucks
each and they're blue so they look cool.
I'm going to install them on the bottom here but
before I do I want to reinforce the bottom.
There's only one piece of 3/4 inch ply down here.
I like to have something a little bit more
substantial to bite into so I'm going to put
an extra strip of ply right here at the front
where the casters are going to be screwed in.
I can attach it with some glue and screws.
Now I'm going to mark the locations
of the holes in each caster.
Have it roughly centered here.
I'm just pre-drilling the center
just to help the screw get started.
Now I'll drive inch and a quarter wood screws.
That bad boy is not going anywhere.
To install the plywood cart obviously you're going
to need to prop up one end a little bit because
the one end has casters and the other side doesn't.
I'm just using whatever I had laying around to prop it
up to approximately the same height as the casters.
Attaching it to this vertical member here
I'm going to use on of these gate hinges.
It's a pretty big one so it can take a lot of weight.
I'm going to attach it like so so that the leaf end,
this triangular leaf can be attached
to the side of the cart itself.
Let's drill these in with a couple of screws.
Now with two hinges installed we can try to
move the whole thing back a little bit here.
Get it lined up as best we can.
Now we can screw them in place.
If all goes well we should be able to remove the supports.
Hopefully you won't hear any wood cracking.
This bad boy should swing right out.
Yeah, baby.
Here's the cool thing. You don't really ever
have to move it out much more than this.
Just enough so that it's convenient
to slide sheet goods in and out.
Once they're in place push it up against the wall.
I see it's actually coming back out toward me
a little bit so you may want to come up with
a little hook system or something to hold it in
place but for the most part this is looking pretty good.
And thankfully I don't hear any wood cracking.
I'm going to attach this little handle here for convenience.
This should finish it off nicely.
You can see I've already got some lumber on the
main racks and now we can start loading this guy up.
Plenty of room for solid wood and also sheet good
scraps here, whatever you want to use those for.
Now I'll load up the main sheet good rack.
(sultry jazz music)
There it is. A sturdy and high capacity lumber
rack and a sheet goods cart that swings out.
It's nice and convenient. It's right by the front
door so I could just pull the materials right from
the truck and put it right here for processing.
Honestly I'm really happy with the way this turned out.
There are lot of different ways that
you could take a project like this.
You could add neat little features to it,
you could do more to reinforce it.
Let me know what you guys do because
I'd love to see your changes.
For me, for now, I think this is going to work
pretty good until I start to buy more wood,
which seems to always be a problem.
Thanks for watching. Of course, check out the plan
for this project at TheWoodWhisperer.com
and we'll catch you next time.
(sultry jazz music)
(woman singing)