Stackable Boards

[kevorama]

OK, I'm slowly getting there and the clock is running faster than I am. I hate having to take my motorcycle, tractor, bikes and any other would be items out of my garage for any length of time. As most of you know, it takes a lot of space to fuse and build boards that would make up a pretty good sized home show to say the least. In the process of figuring out what was going to be sacrificed in order to make room for me to finish my boards, I was hit with a stroke of brilliance... or so I'd like to think, anyway.I made stackable boards so that six of these, which would normally take up the same space as three 4' x 8's only took up the space of one 4' x 4'!

Here's what I did:

Took a 4' x 8' x 3/4" OSD and cut it in half 4' x 4' ( you know how heavy a 4' x 8' can get when it's loaded down!), added 2" x 4" legs cut appropriately in height depending on whether you are making 200g or 500g boards. And they now fit nicely in my garage without having to move all my really important stuff out.

Table legs made of 2" x 4" pine. I made my 200g board legs 10" long cause that was the tallest of my cakes and cut the 500g board legs to 12" for the same reason. Make sure you measure your tallest cake and add at least an inch to it.

To save time, make a jig of where the legs are going to be and that way you can put three pieces of OSD on top of each other and pre-drill all for corners at once. Also, this keeps the legs on top of each other which makes it that much stronger when stacked fully loaded.

This shot shows the importance of measuring your cakes prior to build.

I have finished building six tables/boards and this is how they stack up, so to speak. Another trip to the lumber yard tomorrow morning will have me stocked up to finish the other six.
I have other ideas in mind to make these better after the 4th is over.
Happy Holidays!

[Dewey]

Good idea.

[MetalThrashingMark]

Dude!! Great idea,thanks!

[thesilverone]

great way to save space. that rack looks impressive as well.

[bigbplaya]

i am going go on a whim and say those boards are stackable for better transport??

[CityBlaster]

Cool. BTW that rack looks like a monster. I blew a nut thinking about how heavy that thing is.

[Ble_227]

Now that's thinking with both half's of the brain!

That would make it nice to keep the garage straitened up.

[matandch]

I like the idea. What's the approximate cost per table?

[QMAN]

Ok, totally awesome idea for the cake boards. I got boards laying everywhere in my garage and its a mess. Transport and storage of those would be a dream.

Now for your rack. It an interesting design and I noticed you have you tubes stagered a bit in the racks. Whats the story on that. I haven't seen anything like that before. And do you have like 12"s on the sides in 18"s in the center or is it just raised for design purposes? Its a beautiful rack.

[kevorama]

I'll try to answer all to date in this one reply.

Cost: The OSD was on sale at Lowes in my area of MO. for under 9$
2 x 4's will vary across the country. I think I paid a little over $2 for an 8 footer. Your screws will vary with what you go with. I used 2 1/2 coarse drywall and they were $19 for 5 lbs. I would've used deck screws that were coated, but I was out of them ( I finished my deck finally ).
Roughly, two 4' x 4' boards with legs should run you about $10 plus sweat equity.

The rack:

I put the outside rows at 75 degrees and noticed that there was a ton of room in the center, after the fact. So, like any good pyro would do, I made another rack of singles and dropped it dead in the center of the outside racks and it fit like a charm. You all know that that doesn't happen very often.

Staggered tube configuration:

That was just because I used 2" x 4"s for the bottom of the rack. I noticed that I had two options:

1) notch the uprights so that the 1" x 3" side rails would fit the tubes perfectly and keep them tight, or...

b) stagger the tubes and get the most out of my wooden real estate.

I chose the latter. This is the second year that I have done the staggered 2" x 4" base and uprights and it works great!

My center rack is also a 15" HDPE pipe. I don't use anything less than 15" er's. No particular reason, it's just what I choose to buy from Pyrogear.

If you have any other questions feel free to msg me.

Kevin

[raymor]

Now for your rack. It an interesting design and I noticed you have you tubes staggered a bit in the racks. Whats the story on that.

More tubes in less length than a single, I'm sure, without having to go the full width needed
for double rows. It's narrower than a double row, I was going to do that myself, but I just
happened to have a lumber that will just fit double rows. At least I EXPECT they'll fit - the
tubes will arrive Tuesday.

[vinito]

Here's a thought. Rather than having the boards up on stilts which will tend to be bouncy during the shoot, would it make sense to flip them over and stack them on the "risers", or would they tend to obstruct the line of fire from the cakes? If it doesn't get in the way, they would still sit flat on the ground without having to remove them and they would stack the same.

I like the stacking idea.

$.02

[kevorama]

Looking at them in the pic, I can see how you would say bouncy. I had the same thought, initially. But, at 4' by 4' and the legs in from the corners by about 5" they are rock solid. My wife stood on one and it gave very little. 3/4" OSD is pretty heavy stuff. To answer your Q, I guess I could turn them over, but that's not how I really envisioned it. My bottom board won't have legs. The second one will stand atop of it.

[vinito]

The more I think about this, the more I want to try it too.

I'm thinking about making legs like yours but having the two back ones taper kind of to a point. My shoot site is on a hill and I have to block up the boards. If I could push the back legs into the ground to level up the board for the shoot I could kill two birds with one shell.

One thing about doing "risers" rather than legs is you'd have yet another thing to think about when laying out the boards. I think I'd be a little concerned with having obstacles with fan cakes. One less thing to think about is good. I haven't been really adept with the thinking thing for the past couple days.

[QMAN]

Also your design means the board is up off the ground so you don't have to worry about moisture. You could have the whole board tightly covered with a really thin mil of plastic and fire right through it if you had to rain wise.

So are planning on storing all those 4X4 sheets every year legs and all?? My wife would string me up by the rafters in the garage. I'm still trying to figure out how I am going to store all the racks I made this spring....

[kevorama]

I too, live in a rather hilly environment. What I do is pound surveying stakes into the ground where my table legs will be and then level the table and shoot a few screws through the stake and into the low side legs. It only takes a few seconds to do. I haven't done it with this setup yet, but I did something similar last year with my 4' x 8' boards and it worked great. I'll post more pics as I get further in. The worst part is that as we get closer to the 4th I'm getting some great new ideas. I need to get started earlier next year. I give credit to all those here at PU for educating me and giving me a chance to pass on my limited experience to those who can benefit from it.

[kevorama]

QMAN, my wife is ecstatic that I can limit it to such a small area. On the flip side, I have convinced her that we need to add a third car garage and storage area to the house. Don't ruin this for me, LOL.

[unipyro]

one word-supercalifragalisticexpialidotious!

[PokerPyro]

Kev,
Great idea. I was just talking with some friends over the weekend about this very problem. One was suggesting that I put up a perm set of shelves in my garage to hold the boards. I put this in the "how to make sure you wife absolutely knows you have a problem" category. In my case, this year I have 15 2'x4' boards and it basically takes up 1.5 garage bays. It also requires a set of wood or something underneath each board in order to pick them up off of the cement easily

I might do something similar with a hinge that would allow me to fold the legs up (I woulnt want to shoot of the boards that high). Hmmmmm......

Great idea!
-=T

[FireStrter]

What a smart idea.

[LegalizeFireworks]

BRILLIANT!