Space, the next frontier

From: Mike Ford <mikeford_at_netwiz.net>
Date: Fri May 21 03:05:25 1999

>> 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

Those metro racks are serious "commodity" items that everybody wants and
the prices rarely drop below those you mention. I don't really have the
space or arrangement to need rollers, so I have skipped them so far.

I agree the steel shelving is old and ugly, but its made out of beer cans
compared to the Gorilla Racks 14 guage steel. Either one will hold the
sorts of things computer collectors will have, monitors, laser printers,
boxes of books (ie one heck of a lot), but the Gorilla Rack is pretty close
to current design heavy industrial shelving (I've seen them with shelves
complete filled with lumber etc.).

I wish I had the time to wait and see what I find, but last weekend the
water heater started leaking and everything in the garage had to be moved
to make room to change it out. My car has been on the street (against condo
rules) for the last week, and won't be coming back inside until I have more
shelves in place.

Santa Ana has a huge place called Builders Surplus with two yards filled
with used shelving, but the prices are around 60 to 75% of the new Home
Depot price. I do agree it does seem a bit insane to buy $500 worth of
shelving for $300 worth of old computer stuff, but at some point "time is
money" and I need to move on to other things.
Received on Fri May 21 1999 - 03:05:25 BST