Recommended storage for heavy lathe tooling

[choochoo_balooParticipant @choochoo_baloo]

Hello all.

I need to move some beefy lathe accessories into storage. An example is my 10 inch Pratt cast iron chuck weighing 20 kg. My preference is lidded plastic boxes; they can be stacked and moved individually if needed so as to make them manageable! Also being watertight will help minimise rusting.

However I’m concerned about the weight rating of such boxes. I’ve done some searching and I thought about lidded “Euro” boxes though they still seem a tad flimsy for this job.

Can anyone recommend a suitable range/brand of boxes?

Any help is gratefully received.

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

Dedicated wood case with lifting handles for that one!!!

[DiogenesParticipant @diogenes]

Trouble with stacking sealed boxes is that (for whatever reason) you will end up not checking them as often as you ought, and I’ve seen that end badly SO many times with stuff in storage.

Put your most treasured items where you will be falling over them every day!

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

A lot plastic boxes are not only flimsy but degrade with time, depending on storage conditions.

Heavy chucks and the like might be better coated with preservative and put on on small, purpose-made “pallets” made from wood, with an air space under the floor, but open apart from a light dust-cover.

[Adrian R2Participant @adrianr2]

Ex-military ammo cases perhaps, if there is a suitable size? Tend to be rugged, have handles and if seals are intact be moisture resistant. Write on the top what they each contain AND the last opening date and check regularly.

[Robert Atkinson 2Participant @robertatkinson2]

Really Useful Boxes

https://www.reallyusefulproducts.co.uk/uk/html/onlineshop/fullrange_rub.php

I have over a hundred of them. They are strong, sides don’t buckle when stacked. Some of mine are over 15 years old with no sign of deterioration. I have mostly the 18 litre size plus 3, 4, 9 and some others. Check dimensions some different volumes will stack together.
Most are filled with dense / heavy items so I avoid the bigger sizes as they become unmanageable with heavy items.
I have them stacked up to 6 ft high, the sides are designed to take verical loads. This does stop them being nested when empty. Insides are clean and smooth.
Fairly expensive but think of the value or the contents. Shipping can be a pain due to volume but Rymans stock them if you have one locally. There are look-alikes but those I’ve seen are not of the same quality.

[Adrian R2Participant @adrianr2]

Clearly a man who knows how to organise – contents all photographed, itemised and cross referenced in a tracking database as well I suspect.

For a big lathe chuck in one of those I’d make a plywood base to spread the load and avoid splitting the plastic and glue or screw on some blocks to stop it shifting and becoming unbalanced when moved.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Good question, and I hope someone has a cheap and available answer!

For historic reasons I have far too many plastic storage boxes.   Only two have decayed in 30 years and they were both cheap and nasty.   What’s more common is breakage due to overloading, especially when stacked.

None of the boxes I found quoted a weight limit, only capacity in litres.   It appears sellers expect customers to apply “common sense”, which is unfortunate because there is no such thing as “common sense”!    Instead, the customer has to experiment.

My cheaper boxes are made of thin plastic good enough for light domestic stuff, blankets, toys, electronics etc.  Garden and workshop boxes are much thicker, but all plastic boxes are bendy and some are brittle!

Heavy tools are a special case.   I guestimate a 10″ chuck weighs 50kg, a two-man lift that would be unwise to stack.   A 60 litre box has capacity for at least six 10″ chucks, total weight 250kg, but that requires mechanical handling and is probably well beyond any ordinary container’s design capacity.   But weight only matters if the box is moved and stacked.   Sat on the floor in a fixed position and used only as a protective shell, a thin plastic box could safely store several heavy chucks.  Just don’t move it, and especially don’t put it on top of a stack, even with a forklift!

Here’s a guesstimate of moveable stackable weight capacity:

A 60litre box filled with water will weigh 60kg, which, though an unrealistic load, is a likely maximum, with some unknown moderate safety factor.

In practice, most stackable plastic boxes provide handles for a one-man lift.  That suggests a realistic upper limit of about 25kg and a maximum stack height of 3 or 4.  A pessimist would only risk 25kg per box, whilst an optimist might assume the box designer expected a two-man lift and would load it to 50kg.  Whether or not a 50kg load is wise depends on the box – most of mine are thin plastic, and, after a decade, the bottom boxes in a stack of 4 are noticeably bowed.  The heaviest is about 20kg. No experience of heavy garden boxes, because I couldn’t find any that stacked.

The “build a wooden box” answer is effective, but expensive, hence less used these days.   The modern equivalent surrounds and supports products with a moulded polystyrene shell inside one or more stout cardboard boxes, often with layers of sealed plastic bags.  Modern packaging is engineered to protect items adequately at minimum cost.  Unfortunately, not trivial to design, and hard to replicate in a home workshop.

Euroboxes being industrial are probably stronger than DIY store boxes, but beware of flimsy imitations.  I don’t know of anything better for tools that’s available to the public.  They exist but are hard to come by, at least where I live!

Dave

 

 

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

I keep a look out for old (ie real wood) chests of drawers being chucked out. The drawers are then cut down to my standard size which does happen to be the size of some plastic ones. They end up as different heights which is not a problem but all have the same footprint. I may make some half size that stack on the standard ones but realised that twice size would end up just too heavy to lift. I line them with plastic to avoid metal resting on wood.

The biggest problem with stacks is the item you want is always at the bottom.

[Clive FosterParticipant @clivefoster55965]

Impressed by Roberts stack but hafta say he is braver man than I in going up so high.

For this elderly penguin unmanageable starts at about 4 ft up where it becomes hard to lift the boxes enough to disengage them from the one below.

Costs a fortune but shelves at one and a bit box height spacing are safer for me. Plus some form of mechanical winch assistance. (I have a scaffold lift in my loft reading over a 4 ft square hatch.). Sack barrow for moving is good idea too.

Drifting off topic an effective ready for use storage system for hefty chucks, vices, rotabs et al is open side, platform style, drawers on full extension slides. Much easier to move sideways and lift rather than having to lift up out of the drawer.

Once upon a time (very much) younger Clive thought nothing of hefting underweight bags. But such has dwindled almost into the mists of fantasy!

Clive

[Bazyle]

On Bazyle Said:

 

The biggest problem with stacks is the item you want is always at the bottom.

Yes Bazyle, ask me how I know.  Another one of life’s unanswered questions.

[MacolmParticipant @macolm]

Having bought a Clarke bench with drawers, I soon found the balls from the slides escaped onto the floor! Returning it would have been the correct course of action, but the need for reliable storage quickly saw me replacing the slides with better quality (still Chinese) 45kg rated slides. After several years, this has been completely successful for storing hand tools and boxes of screws and knickknacks.

Thus emboldened, I then bought two pairs of 100kg heavy duty slides to improve the drawers in my lathe stand. These now hold chucks up to 8 inch, faceplates, a Burnerd collet chuck and set of collets, as well as various tooling. This must all add up to several tens of kilograms, but the slides continue to work smoothly without any problems after several years. A desirable feature of the setup is the small distance (vertical and horizontal) it is necessary to move the heavy items. If you can fit in such an arrangement, I would recommend it.

The slides came from Ebay, and you do need to read between the lines to assess what you are buying, but much low cost Chinese stuff is of adequate quality. European made slides are also available, probably better, but significantly more expensive. You pays your money ….

[Robert Atkinson 2Participant @robertatkinson2]

Yes the bins are all numbered and contents photographed. I’ve a good memory of what I have. I keep lighter stuff at the to pof the stack.
For heavy single items like a big chuck I’d put a load spreader (ply, HDPE chopping board etc) in the bottom and a PE foam buffer with a hole in the middle to stop it sliding around.

Lifting a 18l RLB is not a problem. I did struggle a bit last week with a new (to me) bit of electronic test equipment. It’s 20″ wide, 17″ deep 11″ high and weighs 40kg. Unusually no handles either. Had to lug it up stairs and put it in place a bit above waist height. That is well above what is recomended. (a Agilent 8720C 20GHz VNA if you must know)

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

Robert – I hope your floor loading plan is OK !

[cogdobblerParticipant @cogdobbler]

If you use plastic, spend the money for the good ones like Robert did above. I used cheap hardware store storage boxes when I set up a storage rack in my workshop, and a few years later they are going brittle and falling apart. Luckily not much heavy stuff in them as I never did trust them too much. For a heavy chuck, I would make a wooden box out of an old pallet, with lifting handles built in.

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