We are currently experiencing a 2-3 week lead time on SOME items.  If you have a time sensitive project please call our office for estimated ship date before ordering (888)-609-3779.  Also, if you are associated with the Sign Industry (Sign Shops) please be sure to sign up for Goldmember pricing and await confirmation email before signing in with a password to review your pricing.

Organizing your materials

Organizing your materials

Posted by Kristin on Jun 8th 2015

I recently had a moment to review our substrate racks with our owner Kevin Liles. I noticed that we had several styles of racking in our work shop here outside my office. They were different than what we have shown on our web site and because I am new to the industry I wanted to learn more about the substrate rack we offer for sale.

I went out to the shop floor with Kevin and he took a moment to review the differences and the similarities of our custom racks built for our use in the shop and what we developed for sale to our customers.

We developed two styles of racking (horizontal and vertical), after we found how much easier it was for our shop team to keep track of our inventory, handle the stock, and access the materials needed for the large variety of orders that pass through our hands each day.

(It turns out there are a many uses for the racking and one of my co-workers just walked into my office and suggested a new and absolutely problem solving use for the rack with just a tweak of customization…more about that later, for now it is secret squirrel information and in development. Way to go Kay for thinking outside the box.)

Okay, I get a little side tracked, back to the uses for these racks.

In sign shops there is often a lot of sheet aluminum, some of it quite large, best stored so it can be reviewed by gauge and color. The horizontal substrate rack is an excellent solution for storing your aluminum, card stock, coroplast etc. These large sheets of material can be neatly tucked into the cagey looking racking and filed for easy review and inventory tracking. We use two double stacked Horizontal racks for storing the long sheets of material before it is cut into smaller sizes.

The term “drops” was used in a description for the vertical substrate rack today with Kevin and I had to ask…apparently if you are in the business of sign making you will know exactly what this means. For me the newbie, I was delighted to learn it is the extra piece or pieces that “drop” when you are cutting your substrate (or medium) to size. Imagine?! Of course it is a “drop”.

I love learning this stuff and hope you can bear with me as I expand my vocabulary.

Okay side tracked again…it turns out there are a lot of drops that gather in a sign shop and keeping them organized is a task in enormity. If you are concerned with capital and labor variables for your business, finding and knowing what pieces of what you have available for the next job is important stuff.

The unique characteristics of the vertical substrate racking are helpful here.

The adjustable shelving is easy to assemble and can provide the needed space to keep your materials in an accessible working arrangement. 

We developed an awesome shelving system to utilize a counter sunk bolt and inter-tube- threaded- insert so there are no protruding hardware components that would possibly damage your stocked materials.

All you need to do is decide what height is needed and the adjustable bars are easy to install with a Phillip’s-head screw driver. Each of the vertical substrate racks include 2 shelves for long sheets to stand upright and 2 shelves with 3 adjustable shelves (total of 8 shelves) for your choosing of height with the counter sunk –bolt and insert system.

I added these images from our shop for you to see how we have double stacked some racking as well as the variety of substrates we can fit in a small work space.

Forgive me please, it was after shop hours on a Friday afternoon, the lights were off everybody had left like a herd of elephants and things may not be as neat and tidy as when the OSHA folks come for a visit.

Keep in mind since we are the manufacturer and these were initial prototypes that we use in our shop, they differ a bit from the space saving, stream lined end results we have made available to our customers on our website.

(We can customize for you, but we think you will find the racking items we offer will work well for organizing your inventory.)

There are other uses for all of the racking, we have customers purchasing the racks to organize their shipping boxes, builders and project coordinators have requested the vinyl racks for rolled up plans.

We also see people using the racks for finished sign organization in their sign shops too.

You can find more information regarding dimension and material specifications along with pricing on our website. www.metalcraftindustries.net

Here are the item numbers and descriptions of the racks I have mentioned;

The Horizontal substrate storage racking we offer is item# X-RCK-HSSR

The Vertical substrate storage racking we offer is on our website-item# X-RCK-VSSR

There is also a vertical substrate storage rack that also is available with a vinyl rack component.

The vertical substrate storage rack with vinyl rack add-on Item# X-RCK-VSSR-VC is a great solution and all-in-one complete storage system. It offers the same ease of use as the vertical substrate storage rack plus the looped rod assembly used for our vinyl racks.

Speaking of Vinyl racks, there are 3 styles available, they make sorting your roll materials (vinyls and tapes) an easier task.

The racks can be mounted on the wall, for short or long rolls and a free standing style is also available to accommodate your full selection of sign making materials. We use the free standing racks a lot around here. I will add an image from our shop

.

The item numbers for the vinyl racks are as follows:

Free standing rack-item# X-RCK-FSVR-44

Short roll lightweight wall mount rack item# X-RCK-WMVR-16-WIRE

Wall mount rack item# X-RCK-WMVR

To wrap this up and send you on your way to organize your stuff I would like to have included an image of our shop with a great looking man or woman standing next to our tidy shelves, but no one on our team wanted to stand still for a minute. Seems we are all busy, and I am thinking that is a good SIGN.

You can call us with questions regarding our items by clicking the number below on your cell phone or dialing direct during normal business hours...

+1 (888) 609-3779