Stop Compromising Your Sanitary Finish.
For a stainless steel service center or hygienic component manufacturer, a standard A-frame or floor stack is a liability. Every time you slide a polished 316L tube out of a bundle, you risk surface scratches that reject the material against ASME BPE standards. Recover 50% of your floor space and switch to a 100% accessible, damage-free storage system designed for high-value tubular products.
Why the "Standard A-Frame" Fails High-Purity Manufacturing
In the world of sanitary fluid handling—whether you are producing heat exchangers, valve clusters, or high-purity pharmaceutical piping—the surface finish (Ra) is your currency. Traditional storage methods like **A-frame pipe racks** or floor stacking (honeycombing) are the silent killers of profitability in this sector.
When you store 20-foot lengths of polished stainless steel tubing on a static A-frame, retrieving a specific heat number or diameter often requires sliding the tube across others. This metal-on-metal contact creates micro-scratches. For structural steel, this is negligible; for hygienic processing components destined for the dairy or semiconductor industry, this is a defect.
Furthermore, A-frames consume vast amounts of horizontal floor space while offering poor vertical density. In a fabrication shop where square footage is at a premium for CNC bending machines and orbital welding stations, this wasted space restricts your production capacity.
The operational shift from "static storage" to "dynamic retrieval" changes everything. The
crank out cantilever rack functions like a heavy-duty industrial chest of drawers. Each arm level is not fixed; it is a mobile carriage that extends 100% out of the rack structure.
This design allows you to organize inventory by grade (304 vs. 316L), OD size, and Heat Number without burying stock. When an operator needs a specific bundle for the saw, they simply crank the specific level out into the aisle.
Double-sided telescopic rack fully extended, showcasing accessibility for long profile storage.
Eliminating the "Forklift Dance" with Overhead Cranes
The most critical advantage of this system for a stainless steel processor is the compatibility with **overhead cranes**.
Standard A-frames and cantilever racks force you to use forklifts. Forklifts require wide aisles (often 12-15 feet) and involve blind spots. Maneuvering a 20-foot bundle of delicate tubing with forks is the leading cause of "kinking" and collision damage in the warehouse.
With
overhead crane accessible racking, the workflow is vertical. You extend the drawer, and the crane lowers the nylon slings directly onto the bundle.
1. **Zero Deflection:** The crane lifts the bundle evenly, preventing the bending often seen when forks are too narrow.
2. **Zero Scratches:** No steel forks sliding under the tubes.
3. **Space Savings:** You can reduce your aisle width from 15 feet to roughly 6-8 feet (just enough for the operator), condensing your storage footprint by up to 50%.
Red heavy-duty rack designed specifically for safe overhead crane loading of long metal stock.
Precision Handling for High-Value Inventory
For manufacturers dealing with high-mix, low-volume orders (e.g., custom valve assemblies or specific pump components), accessibility is speed. The manual crank mechanism is geared to allow a single operator to move tons of material with minimal effort. This ergonomic design reduces operator fatigue and injury risk.
More importantly, it allows for visual inspection *before* the lift. The operator can verify the stencil markings and heat numbers on the tubes while they are on the extended rack, ensuring the correct material is sent to production every time. This eliminates the costly error of processing the wrong alloy.
Ergonomic manual operation allows precise control over heavy tube bundles.
Built for Heavy Industrial Reality
Unlike light-duty roll-formed shelving, the
Telescopic Cantilever Rack is engineered with structural H-beam steel profiles. This rigidity is non-negotiable when you are storing dense bundles of stainless steel bars or thick-walled pipes.
* **Load Capacity:** Standard units handle up to 6,600 lbs (3,000 kg) per level.
* **Stability:** The base is anchored deeply into the concrete, ensuring that even when fully extended, the center of gravity remains secure.
* **Safety:** Anti-roll components and safety pins prevent drawers from moving during loading/unloading.
Secure floor anchoring is essential for the stability of fully extended heavy loads.
FAQ: Storage for Stainless Steel & Tubing
Q1: Can we prevent carbon contamination on stainless steel tubes using this rack?
Yes. While the standard rack is steel, we offer options to line the cantilever arms with UHMW (Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene) strips or rubber. This creates a non-metallic barrier between the rack and your stainless steel products, preventing iron contamination and protecting the polished finish.
Q2: We handle 20ft and 24ft tube lengths. Can this rack accommodate that?
Absolutely. The system is modular. We can configure the number of columns and the spacing between them to support 20ft, 24ft, or even longer extrusion lengths to ensure there is no sagging or deflection in the middle of the tubes.
Q3: Is the "crank out" mechanism difficult to operate when fully loaded?
No. The system uses a high-ratio gear transmission system. A single operator can extend a drawer loaded with 6,000 lbs of steel bar stock with just about 20-30 lbs of cranking force. For even higher frequency operations, electric motor-driven options are available.
Q4: How does this compare to a "Honeycomb" or Pigeonhole rack?
Honeycomb racks are notorious for "dead inventory"—short pieces get pushed to the back and lost. They also require manual dragging of tubes, which scratches surfaces. The Telescopic Cantilever Rack exposes the entire bundle, making inventory management 100% visible and accessible without dragging.
Q5: What are the floor requirements for installation?
Because of the high density and cantilevered leverage, a reinforced concrete floor is typically required. Our engineering team will provide the specific point load data (PSI) based on your stored material weight so you can verify your facility's slab capacity before installation.
