I collect tubing, bar, sheet, whatever, steel and aluminum all the time. Not big amounts of any one type. No 4x8 sheets, for instance. I bet many of you have come up with great ideas how to keep it accessible and organized. I'd sure like to see them since I'm trying to organize my shop right now. thanks Dan T
I have a 1ft wide section of raised concrete on one side of the garage. I built a rack that runs down the side of my garage where I store all my sticks. No lost floor space and easy access when the door is open.
i did a 4" exhaust for a buddy and he gave me the left overs from it. so i took the 2 pieces left and part of a chevy bomb outer case. tack welded them together and welded a plate to the bottom of them so they stand up. i then filled them with all of my little pieces if flat bar, round stock and small tubing cut offs i have. there differnt lengths so the drops i have will not get lost. alot easyer than searching the table, shelves, walls and buckets for a piece of rod when there in one spot.
As for the small stuff that is too good to throw away I use 5 gallon buckets seperated out into round shit, square shit, angle shit, flat shit, and cool shit that might get used for something. this works well for finding something that might work rather than throwing them all into one big pile that is hard to dig threw. Also I'm learning to be more selective of what I keep as it can get out of hand pretty easily. I'm concidering making a rack to mount the buckets up the corner of my shop at an outward angle so they use less floor space. But that just one of many projects.