[kev82abn]

In a post by GRAYWOLF some canned foods went bad, KEV made reference to a shelf I made that auto-rotates canned foods, this is how to make your own, this is the basic idea, use what you have around, and build to suit your needs and space available.

I used a piece of 1/4" peg board as the bottom pieces as it already has holes drilled. I used some 1x4, cut to size, and some simple pan-head bolts and deck screws to put it all together. I used about 10 degrees on the angles. A picture is worth a thousand words so here they are...As you can see in the last picture when you remove a can from the bottom, a new one drops in place, new cans are placed on top. they roll off the back and drop into the guides and are stopped by the front block. I always purchase cans with the "use by" date clearly marked. The last one shows I have to go to the store as all the cans fit in one row!!

 

[kev]

This is the best suggestion I have ever seen for keeping your canned good rotated, and its so simple.

 

[Kenno]

This is a great system, reminds me of the DYI articles from old Popular Mechanics Magazine, back when low cost improvements were concidered a good thing! Kudos!

 

[eeyore]

Kev82,

How do you load the cans (from the front? pushing them up?)

 

[kev]

They are loaded from the top and gravity pulls them down to the second shelf. Both shelves are tilted just a little bit. The top shelf is tilted so that the cans roll sown and feed into the back side of the bottom shelf.

 

[kev82abn]

eeyore,
There is a gap behind the top shelf slightly larger than the (biggest) can size, the shelves are on about a 10 degree angle, as you load from the top, the cans roll back, drop onto the bottom, and roll foreward as you remove from the front. On the bottom shelf there is a stop block to hold the cans from moving, and not one on the top to make loading easier. If you zoom on picture (4), look at the back, you can see the light between the top shelf and the wall, you can also see the can at the back it looks like it is on top of the one below. You can see only about half of the can, as it is dropping from the top shelf. Hope this helped.

 

[RevPaul]

Thanks for the reminder, I just bought a conciderable bit of goods today, and rotated my stock, man, that was a lot like work !
I am going to work on my system, or I should say, I am going to get a system.
Thanks for the info !
RevPaul

 

[eeyore]

Very nice Kev 82. I see when i zoom, it looked like both of the shelves were tilting the smae direction, which could not understand. But constructing the way you did makes it work fine. Thanks for the reply

 

[DeepSouth80]

Genius. This problem has been bugging me. What a solution.

 

[riverrat]

I built verticle storage racks for canned goods between the studs in a closet in my basement. I can fit 3 vertical rows (flat side of cans facing left and right) side by side with 1/4 inch plywood separating them. It looks a little like the inside of a soda vending machine. Make sure the bottom board tilts inward, or it will unload the whole row. I saw a website that sells metal kits. They are a little expensive, so I built my own. Just take from the bottom, feed new stuff in the top.

 

[eeyore]

I posted these pics on the old board, if you have more money then talent working with wood here are a few options.



http://www.foodstorageracks.com/ Is a pretty inpressive but expensive systems, bt might gie the more creative some ideas.

 

[Reborn]

Woth thinking about. I'm sick of bending ans twisting to move cans to the front on pantry shelves etc. How many cans can each row hold and what about different size cans? We've got probably at least 50 cans of each type of food we store and some cans are probably too big to fit in those shelves. But definitely worth trying to adapt. We also turn our cans upised down every two months.

 

[badkarma]

Excellent design, well done!

 

[Bitty]

..........

 

[ecilop]

I've been looking at the commercial racks and they are way too expensive. This is an ideal setup and is remarkably simple. I've been wanting to put something like this in my laundry room upper cabinets where I store lot of canned food but the cabinets are not very big. When we bought the house we renovated the kitchen and I put the old kitchen cabinets in the garage which is currently where a lot of my junk lives. ( I hate to throw anything away!) Since I have the old base cabinets in the garage, I could build these shelves inside the base cabinets to store all of my "most used" canned goods. They should cycle through fast enough that the garage temperatures (Florida) should not really affect them too much. This will free up the upper laundry room cabinets to increase my capacity for items I have to keep cooler. Thanks for sharing.

 

[ecilop]

First, my thanks to kev82abn for the inspiration. I have been in need of a storage system and had somewhat limited space. Kev82abn had a great idea but I had to put my storage in a cabinet and I just couldn't get that design to fit, so I adapted.

I built this can rotation system in a modular design. Each rack is 5 inches wide and was built the height and depth necessary to slide into the existing cabinets that I have in my garage. This storage is for food we eat on a daily basis and therefore, it rotates through rather quickly. I built these out of 1/4 inch paneling for the sides and 5/8 MDF for the shelves. The shelf connectors are made from galvanized roof flashing I had on hand as well.

Each rack holds 28 cans. I will soon have three such cabinets, with 5 racks each, totaling storage for 420 cans. I have normally stored these canned foods in my laundry room cabinets. This will free up that space for storage of other foods. If I did have to leave my main residence, I can unscrew the main cover, slide out each module (carefully) and put them in the back of by truck.

As you can see, it's so easy a child can do it.

 

[Sandman]

Genius. I Love it!

 

[DocYoung]

Great idea! kev you should give that man an award thingy .... (both of them).

 

[drewfromden]

Would vertical work better or worse?

 

[VW.]

You guys are wicked clever. Thanks!
VW