Practical lengths of stock for home machinists

I built a rack behind my mill that will hold up to 4 foot lengths for my machinable stock. I need the space about 5 feet above the floor to leave room for the head to extend back, but below that it would just be wasted space. A little awkward to get at but it works.

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I have some stock of larger materials stored outside under a carport but that is mostly steel for welding. I don't try to keep a lot of common materials on hand as I have a local supplier but I will pick up drops when there is something unusual. I recently found out they will deliver for free since I am near by which is really helpful for those long 12-20 foot pieces.

I try not to cut material down any more than needed for handling / storage because even if mostly used in short lengths it never fails that it leads to some waste when the needed lengths don't add up into the existing stock evenly.


If you decide to get rid of some of the bronze, I'd be interested. I can get brass locally but they rarely have any bronze.
 
If I have several projects for CRS, I buy 12' sticks from a local supplier. If I get 20' stcks of HRS he cuts them in 1/2 for free and I pick them up in a Caravan. They lay on the floor behind drill press. Aluminum I buy in 2-3' pieces or roughly 2-3 times what I need for a project. Steel and Aluminum round, I try to buy drops first and specified lengths second. First priority is to have enough spare to redo a piece if you screw-up and save a rush trip to the supplier. And then when you don't screw-up, you start a collection of spare stock.

P.S. Mark certain you color code the pieces!!! Mine: Yellow-O1, Blue-Mystery. Light Gr-12L14, Whit-6061,Red-1018.. Plenty of tales on You Tube about forgetting what a piece of metal was.
 
So, clearing out the space next to the lathe where I had this stock stored in a plastic bucket. I’m making room for where my vertical band saw will go.

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Will cut most of this down to 24” and store in the afore mentioned workbench cubbies.

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I think the bronze hex will stay full length though.

John
 
Well, if I need anything longer than 29” I’ll have to order it.

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My trusty cold saw made short work of it.

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And I’m left with short pieces that will be likely sized right for my next projects.

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Two steel pieces and one bronze will find homes at their existing lengths.

John
 
My ceilings are 10ft so anything shorter than that. I'd avoid cutting anything shorter than necessary.
 
The longest pieces I had were maybe 4’
You can see from the photos that I really didn’t take much off.

Also, we’re not talking about square tube that I’d be building a trailer with. This was all fairly small sections that I’ll probably have to cut down for projects anyway.

I don’t really have a good way to build a stock rack since my shop is so packed and tiny. If it turns out I need something longer I’ll just order it, not a big deal since all this stock was free to begin with.

John
 
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