I’m looking to build a rack that allows me to store plywood on an edge with rollers on the bottom so as to roll it behind my workbench and subsequently roll it back out when needed. Similar to this one: https://www.instructables.com/Rolling-plywood-sheet-storage/
A question I have is whether there’s any one roller material that would be more ideal than another? On one hand I could do what that tutorial does and just make a roller out of wood and washers: https://www.popularwoodworking.com/projects/rollers-ease-plywood-storage/ I could also probably make it entirely out of wood? But moreover- I could just buy metal rollers from McMaster-Carr: https://www.mcmaster.com/2277T115 they’d probably raise the cost of the project a little.
Overall, can any of you think of any reason to go with metal, hardwood, softwood, etc? I’ve seen some comments on other forums driven by a philosophy of ‘workbench and other surfaces your woods come in contact with should be softer than the woods themselves so that they deform if there is wear between the two’. I just want to make sure it glides smoothly on whatever rollers I end up using, hence why I’m leaning towards doing something metal, since it’ll probably have less friction in rolling.
Great idea, but I'm with Pottzy....buy some casters. I have had all my tools on casters since I started 200 years ago. There is a whole world to learn about them. Material of wheels, double lock, single lock, plates or stem, and size. do some youtube research and look at servicecaster.com...then put them on and be done. Lately I have gotten some great deals on amazon tho.... While I have never had wooden casters, I had some steel ones once and they were miserable to move, plus I can't believe the wooden casters won't flatten.... I am just thinking that a woodworking magazine would be looking for projects for you to make...IMHO it is not a great idea...but just my .02
That is very similar to what I use. My storage is just a few rails from 3/4" galvanized pipe. I can see how dividing up the rails into individual wheels may make it easier, but with my setup, the plywood slides easily, it is contact/sliding against neighboring sheets that really adds the friction. Seems like a lot of work for minimal benefit. You could even just place some melamine on the floor below the cage and get a nice surface for sliding.
Just take one of the carts home from Lowes or Home Depot. Already has the wheels on it If you're the honest type and build one I would buy casters. In the long run you'll save time by buying them
@Moke and @Corelz125, maybe it’s my bad in my description, but my plywood storage isn’t itself mobile, its a question of being able to roll the plywood more easily OUT of a stationary rack. Casters really wouldn’t be applicable to that?
A little late to the party but the interesting thing about the design is that because each disk is spins freely, it allows you to slide one sheet out at a time without having the other sheets also on there slide out with it. That Mcmaster roller you linked to (link is broken but I just search with the embedded part number) would cause all of the sheets to roll out together. More likely, they would stay put and the rollers would not roll so you would just be sliding the single sheet over the rollers and you might as well use pipe. If you decide to go with the roller approach, I would buy some cheap bearings and put one or two in each disk/wheel so that they roll very easily.
All that said, my cart is a copy of the Woodworking for Mere Mortals lumber cart and I do not find that it is that hard to simply slide the sheets in and out from end
--Nathan, TX. Hire the lazy man. He may not do as much work but that's because he will find a better way.
@Lazyman… I hate second guessing myself but you just brought up a really good point… darn. Thank you for the insight though- that’s absolutely a good catch that my brain totally skipped over.
It seems like at the end of the day any bottom solution, roller or not, would work fine for plywood. With that said, in the context of my shop, it seems like rollers would be helpful- the plywood storage is going to be at a weird angle, hard to explain. Might go take some photos to show better.
Curious everyone’s opinions if I should go for rollers of a smaller or larger diameter, also how far apart you’d space them. Obviously the further you could go between them, the cheaper the overall cost of rollers would be.
I mentioned that the friction between adjacent sheets leaning (with a near full rack) pretty much cancels out any benefit to the individual rollers. I've found pipe to be sufficient, but a sheet of melamine in the base provides a good slick surface.
I think that is the advantage of having the support on both sides, unlike (my WWMM cart which just has support on one side. If you want to take a sheet out of the middle, you can lean sheets on ones side away (to the left), tilt the one you want straight up and slide it out without much resistance from either side -- probably just where they still touch at the bottom. With the wheels on the bottom, it should slide out pretty easily. My only concern with this design over the WWMM style cart is that it may not be that handy for storing partial sheets. The WWMM cart is rather short so full sheets stick out on both ends but it is really good for storing partial sheets of any size. I usually only have one or two at most full sheets at any given time but always have some partial sheets to store.
Here is the WWMM cart:
--Nathan, TX. Hire the lazy man. He may not do as much work but that's because he will find a better way.
