Crank out cantilever rack

Stop scrapping high-purity stainless steel tubes due to forklift damage. For metal fabrication shops and steel service centers, the “digging” game ends here. Our Crank out cantilever rack systems eliminate the need for wide aisles and dangerous secondary handling. By allowing 100% drawer extension, your overhead crane can access any bar stock, pipe, or tube directly—preserving that critical surface finish and feeding your laser cutters faster.

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Crank Out Cantilever Rack: The End of “Digging” for Steel Inventory

In the high-stakes world of hygienic stainless steel component manufacturing and metal distribution, inventory accessibility is the bottleneck that kills efficiency. If you are storing 20-foot lengths of polished 316L tubing or expensive alloy bar stock on the floor or in static racks, you are familiar with the “burial” problem. The material you need for the next production run is inevitably at the bottom of the stack or behind three other bundles.

The Crank out cantilever rack is not just storage; it is a point-of-use machine feeding solution. It transforms your raw material storage from a static “parking lot” into a dynamic dispenser that integrates directly with your overhead cranes and vacuum lifters.

Eliminating Surface Damage on High-Value Tubing

For industries producing sanitary fittings, valves, or heat exchangers, surface finish (Ra) is everything. Traditional static cantilever racks require forklifts to maneuver long loads into narrow slots. This process is a minefield for damage:

• Fork Impact: Metal forks scraping against polished tubes during insertion.
• Bundle Friction: Dragging a bundle out from the middle of a stack scratches the material below it.
• Deflection: Improper support spacing causing sagging in smaller diameter tubing.

The Crank out cantilever rack solves this by changing the retrieval geometry. The arm extends 100% out into the aisle. You don’t spear the load with a fork; you strap it with nylon slings or grab it with a vacuum lifter from directly above using your shop’s overhead crane. There is zero friction, zero dragging, and zero metal-on-metal contact.

Recovering 50% of Your Floor Space

Metal fabrication shops often face a hard choice: buy new laser cutting machinery or keep storing inventory. You cannot make money on floor space dedicated to forklift aisles. Standard cantilever racking requires aisles of 12 to 14 feet for a forklift to turn with a 20-foot bundle of steel.

Because the Crank out cantilever rack is serviced by an overhead crane, the aisle width is determined only by the depth of the drawer extension (usually around 3-4 feet) plus a safe walking path. This allows you to condense your footprint significantly, often fitting the same amount of tonnage in half the square footage. This reclaimed space can be used for additional saws, CNC machines, or assembly stations.

Technical Specifications & Capacity

These racks are engineered for the heavy reality of the steel industry. We utilize high-grade structural steel and precision bearings to ensure that even when fully loaded with 6,600 lbs of solid bar stock, a single operator can crank the drawer out with minimal effort.

Streamlining Laser and Saw Operations

In a lean manufacturing environment, machine uptime is the primary KPI. If your laser operator spends 20 minutes hunting for the correct gauge of tubing, that is 20 minutes of lost production. This is often caused by the “Secondary Handling” trap—moving three bundles to get to the one you need.

With a Crank out cantilever rack, every level is an active pick face. The operator cranks out the specific drawer containing the required SKU, picks the single piece or bundle needed, and returns the drawer. The cycle time drops from 20 minutes to under 3 minutes. For high-mix, low-volume shops (HMLV), this rapid selectivity is the key to meeting tight lead times without holding excessive safety stock.

Installation and Durability

We understand that downtime during installation is not an option. Our systems arrive with pre-assembled structural components. The installation focuses on anchoring the heavy-duty bases to your concrete slab to handle the moment loads created when drawers are extended. We use high-tensile fasteners and provide detailed floor load requirements to ensure your slab can handle the point loads.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Can this rack handle 24-foot solid stainless steel bars?
Yes. We customize the number of columns and arm spacing to support 20′ to 24′ lengths. For solid bar stock, we increase the number of arms to prevent deflection and ensure the load capacity (up to 6,600 lbs per level) is met.

2. What are the floor requirements for installation?
Because these racks store heavy density loads in a small footprint, a reinforced concrete slab is usually required. Typically, a minimum of 6 inches of 3,000 PSI concrete is standard, but we will calculate the specific point loads for your facility engineers.

3. Do I need a forklift at all with this system?
While a forklift is often used to load the rack initially from the receiving dock, the day-to-day picking and machine feeding are best handled by an overhead crane or vacuum lifter. This eliminates the need for a forklift to enter the aisle.

4. Can we store short lengths or “drops” on these arms?
Yes. We can install steel pans, mesh decking, or specific material dividers on the arms. This creates a solid shelf level perfect for storing cut-offs, drops, or shorter components without them falling through.

5. Is the cranking mechanism difficult to operate when fully loaded?
No. The system uses a reduction gear and heavy-duty roller bearings. Even with a full 3-ton load on a level, the breakaway force required on the crank handle is typically less than 25 lbs, making it ergonomic for any operator.