A ton of fun... and a half

I had been walking round and round for two nights in the shop to figure out how I could make a real sturdy lumber rack with a maximum capacity of a thousand bd ft with a minimum space needed without touching the walls. It must be so that I can use it for boards from 2 ft to 12 ft but I usually use it for 7-10 ft long boards. And after two restless nights I could see that I could use an end-loaded version of it. I also simulated it and it worked. So let’s get started. If I have the main design the rest won’t be so difficult.
The legs are 2” x 4”, the shelves are two 5/2” x 1” boards face to face and the screws are 1/4” x 4” Reisser woodscrews. Pretty sturdy.
I think it was mere luck that this black locust bracket style came to my mind. Why black locust – first because the rest of it is spruce and if I had only screwed the shelves to the legs, that enormous weight could have ripped it apart. Well, it’s still screwed but the stress at the end of the shelves is spread way better along the legs. And black locust is the hardest, strongest wood available here. OK, I could have used ebony too which is even pretty much harder, but who could afford it for this purpose? LOL
It is not perfectly true that you have to have a wall two times longer then your end-loaded lumber rack. Because if your rack is wide enough (e.g. 3 ft like mine) then if you rotate the board a little when you pull it out, you can handle boards about half of the walls length plus the width of the rack with no problem. I think it could be understood better on my workshop layout sketch.
I was at the lumber yard last Saturday and I carefully selected each board to be shipped to my shop on Monday. About 900 bd ft of walnut, ash, cherry, steamed black locust and steamed red willow. The latter two are something really beautiful stuff. I show them (off) in a blog later. So that ton of fun and a half was that when we dragged all of the wood to the 2nd floor with my friend… It took almost 6 hours. It was fun anyways. For a woodaholic like me. But for him… I don’t think so. Though he said that he can come help me the next time, too. He’s a real friend.

-- What are those few hours of mine compared to those decades Mother Nature has put in it!