I built 2' X 4' by 8' high shelving units using Simpson Strong-Tie
brackets, 2 by 4s and 3/8 plywood. What was nice that I could set my
shelf height to whatever I wanted. I needed race tire and winter tire
storage, so I built a tire rack into the bottom of each unit. No lifting
tires and no bending down to see what hiding on the bottom shelf. And
nothing for those pesky sockets to roll under and hide. I also built in
some lumber storage racks on top.
I figured I spent about $75 per unit, which is comparable to Home
Depot's price for the 2' X 4' X 6' high boltless heavy duty shelves. So
my advice to you is if you don't need to customize the shelves to your
situation, get the Home Depot boltless units. Otherwise build 'em
yourself with the Simpson brackets.
The Strong-Ties are sturdy and very quick to put together. The trickiest
part was getting all the brackets the same height to keep the shelves
level. You can do it all without a helper if you use some pipe clamps
and C clamps to keep everything square while you screw it together. I
haven't tried it yet, but I'm sure I could store a dressed V8 engine on
one of the shelves, they are that strong.
http://www.strongtie.com/ is their website
http://www.strongtie.com/products/connectors_list/RTA.html show the
bracket I used, the RTC42.
http://www.strongtie.com/consumers.html picture shows the kind of
shelves I built and a workbench I am planning on building soon, except I
will be customizing it to my own needs and using the RTC44 brackets so I
can use 4 by 4s for the posts. Home Depot usually has the plans
available near the Simpson Strong-Tie display. Or you can get them from
http://www.strongtie.com/TR_Fliers_PDF.html#diy if you pick on "6
Project Plans"
Jon Rush
Eric Schulte wrote:
>
> Hello Shop-Talkers,
>
> I recently had a 40x60 steel building constructed on the back acre for the
>purpose of tinkering on vintage autos and coin-operated machines (i.e.,
>jukeboxes, arcade, etc.). I'm in the process of setting up my shop and have
>many questions pertaining to various aspects. A friend of mine suggested that
>I join shop-talk and tap into the vast wisdom within.
>
> My first question pertains to affordable yet heavy duty shelving options. Are
>there any ideas whether to build free-standing shelves from scratch vs. trying
>to find them surplus?
>
> Retro-Rick
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