With my recent acquisition of the four Grabber hoods and two flat stock hoods, I am looking for a way to safely store all of these in the second story of my garage. If anyone has seen or built a storge rack for hoods, I would love to hear how it was designed. I would like to be able to store them vertically without having to lean one against the next to avoid any chance of scratching or denting them. I have been kicking around a design using 4x4 posts lying flat along the floor with cross braces for side stability, then drilling 2" holes evenly spaced along the boards to thread steel pipe into. I could wrap the pipes in foam insulation and lean the hoods against them to seperate and protect them from each other. It needs to be big and sturdy enough to hold up to 10 steel hoods at one time. Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated before I start construction this weekend. Or if anyone would like to buy a few of these hoods off me to lighten my load, that would be even better!
I've made a rack very similar to your discription and it works very well. I just used a peice of steel on the floor (two runners if you will) and then welded some 1" pipe to it vertically, to get the same effect your going for. then used foam pipe wrap to go around the poles. For the pipe I would just use the cheapest stuff you could find, exhaust tubing, or the tubing for chain link fence. I would also recomend to protect whatever edge of the hoods with foam or cardboard if they will be resting on anything this rack also works good for storing doors, glass, trunk lids, etc.....
Thanks for the advice. It sounds like I might be on the right track with my design idea. I guess i'll give it a shot this weekend and see how it turns out.
If you have open rafters,you can tie each corner and hang them from the rafters. Get some screw hooks and stout string or rope. Very simple and cheap. Unless you have a hurricane go through they will never see damage!
I considered this option, but with 10 hoods to store, I think it would just take up too much space to hang each one from the rafters.
put some foam padding or capret scraps along the 2x4s to give the edge of the hood a soft place to rest.
Actually I wasn't thinking about PVC but that's what I indicated I guess lol.. I would use the SC40 if so. I was thinking about steel pipe at first..extending taller than the hoods using pipe insulator to cover them. The design is basicly like one a glass or windshield guy would have.
Thanks Blugene. Your drawing is very similar to what I was imagining in my head. I don't see why that design wouldn't work. It should be plenty stable once it's loaded up with hoods. Do you think PVC would be strong enough to lean a hood against? The only thing I haven't totally figured out yet is what size and type of pipe to use for the uprights. I don't want to spend too much money on this project. I'll do some snooping around my local Lowes/Home Depot to see what my options are.
I actually srarted working at a Home Depot about a month ago. I personaly would go with 3/4" or 1" pipe. It won't break. HD carries the 4"x6" that I suggest. Do you suppose the base needs to be heavy? I am thinking the weight needs to be heavier going towards the bottom. Also, might start stacking from the center out.. unless the base is attached to the floor somehow.
Falcan Are you going to set this on the floor ??? If you use PVC uprights extend the uprights above the hoods and tie the uprights together with tees and short lenghts of pvc ..
Stock hoods weigh in right at 50 lbs each. I don't know that I would trust PVC that is standing on end just by virtue of being set into a hole. Perhaps they would be okay as dividers in the middle, but I would like to see some solid structure on each end. I was just picturing hoods knocking each other over one at time, until the whole rig fails. I would agree that it would be a good idea to tie them together overhead somehow. Or perhaps something solid on each end, and in the middle, too. Threaded pipe with flanges, maybe.
