20 May
1999
20 May
'99
6:29 p.m.
On Thu, 20 May 1999, Mike Ford wrote:
Rubbermaid
King of the shelves, I just wish I could find more at a decent price.
Sturdiest of the lot, I have one stacked high high high with a monitor on
the top and all sorts of other junk with no wobbles. Shelves have a ridge
around the outside to keep stuff from rolling off, there is a nice little
"dish" in the front to put screws etc. in, and two handle grabber things on
each side to hold a broom and or golf club.
Gorilla Racks
The same basic design used in commercial warehouse shelving, except in
"lighter" 14 guage steel. A 6' x 6' x 1.5' unit with 3 shelves is
$99 at
Home Depot and requires two people to load the box (two big ones I bet). My
neighbor went serious bananas on this, and bought several of the 6' tall
and one double 8' (shelves share a common center support section). I want
some of these pretty badly, but my lust for toys is at war with my
cheapskate nature. Tomorrow is the show down.
The plastic ones and the Gorilla Racks are by far the better choices (with
the Gorilla Rack being the better of the two, although you pay for it).
However, for a seriously big collection, the Gorilla's are just too
costly. You should try looking around at surplus shops for the heavy duty
steel shelving. Its old and ugly but it can hold 10 times the weight of a
Gorilla rack, not that you'd need that much support.
Look around at close-out sales, surplus shops, junk yards, businesses
going out of business, etc. When Home Express (a nation-wide home
furnishing store in the U.S.) went out of business a year and a half back,
they sold everything in their stores including the fixtures. The racks
they used for stored displays are superb Metro brand wire frame racks.
They were selling 2' long x 4' wide by 5' high 4-shelf racks for $80 and
half height for $50. Normal retail value on each is greater than $300. I
bought two of the former and one of the latter, and am using them for my
network closet in my upstairs office (allows cooling through the shelves,
very sturdy, holds servers, UPS, voicemail system, misc. crap) and two are
downstairs in the garage.
For my warehouse I lucked into a great deal on about 1,500sqft of heavy
duty steel shelving from a local electronics surplus shop that had an
excess of it after they movied into a smaller location. The shelving had
been sitting in their back warehouse for years taking up valuable space.
Two people prior to myself made deals to haul it off but never followed
through. I got the whole lot of shelving for $100! I had to spend
another $100 at another surplus place for additional uprights, but $200
for 1,500sqft of heavy duty steel shelving is a crime. Once it is all
erected it will form nine 18' lengths of shelving 5 shelves high.
The downside is it mostly requires nuts & bolts, although some sections
use quick install hardware (the shelf sits on a hanger hooked into the
upright).
So I suggest looking around until you find that good deal on shelving.
The greater L.A. area surely has a bounty of cheap shelving somewhere,
waiting for you to luck upon it.
Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
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