Custom Shelves: Another Win for Aluminum

It’s no secret that we at Framing Tech are great admirers of the utility of aluminum, not least of all when it comes to storage solutions. And that goes double for shelving. In a previous blog we explored the load-bearing and space-saving capabilities of aluminum shelves, not to mention the inherent qualities of aluminum itself. After all, it is…

• lightweight (perfect for assembling and repositioning as needed);
• sturdy (perfect for heavy-duty storage);
• corrosion-resistant (perfect as a drying rack or for chemical storage); and
• just plain classy (perfect for in-home book or trophy display).

While our standard shelving kits should meet most customers’ needs, don’t feel you are obligated to go that route. It pays to consider T-slot aluminum’s versatility in a custom shelf solution.

What Makes Aluminum the Ideal Material for Custom Shelves?

The secret sauce lies in our system of T-slot extruded profiles, which are inherently adaptable to suit the needs of your particular project, no matter how “niche” it may seem, by facilitating a wide array of assembly options and mounting positions, as well as the potential to affix a wide array of specialized attachments and other accessories to your unit. Think doors and panels, for example, to conceal anything you would wish to keep out of sight, such as special supplies or loose wiring. Given that aluminum lends itself quite well to even very tall shelving units, let’s just say that the sky is the limit, so to speak.

Why don’t we put it to the test and demonstrate the adaptability of custom shelves with a few examples? We’ll start with basic warehouse shelving. A warehouse is one of the more common settings in which you would find metal shelving, but it’s not without its own challenges. Shelving units in warehouses tend to be quite high, with upper levels only accessible by forklift trucks. In this instance we could design a custom shelving unit with multiple support vectors, designed to accommodate whatever you intend to store on the unit.

Or what about something more compact, like a walk-in refrigerator or freezer? Aluminum here is the unsung hero of restaurateurs because, as anyone who has worked in the food industry will know, a little bit of leakage from stored ingredients is inevitable.

The corrosion-resistance and ease-of maintenance of aluminum has got your back there—not to mention the fact that aluminum becomes stronger in extremely low temperatures. In terms of design, you will need your shelving to be more compact for maximum storage efficiency. And because T-slot fasteners enable you to affix accessories to your shelving units, you can easily add compartments and even doors to safely separate your ingredients, sequestering produce from the items still cooling off and, critically, cordoning your raw meats away from your prepared foods.

Custom Shelves: The Examples Suggest Themselves!

But wait, there’s more. Custom shelves will perfectly suit a garage, no matter how small or large. Aluminum is the ideal material for a workspace—and it can be made all the more efficient with the addition of custom shelves, which can be used to store tools, hardware, manuals, and so on Their dimensions can be adjusted to make the whole space accessible and productive. Or, if garage space is at a premium and you need to park a car inside, the shelving can be designed to be as narrow as you need.

Industrial utility is not the sole pragmatic forte of custom aluminum shelves either. Let’s take a bookshelf as the next example. The untrained eye might miss them, but many modern bookstores and libraries make use of aluminum shelving to stack their books. Among the more stylistic benefits of custom shelves is that you can rotate the shelf-layers themselves (say at a 45° angle) to create a shelving unit more appropriate for displaying and retrieving books (whether front-facing or spine-facing), or stick with a 90° angle for the more traditional look. When you have all your options open to you, it becomes a matter of taste.

And there you have it. No matter the parameters of your project, custom shelves will get the job done, and not just for the strength of aluminum as a material, but for the inherent customization properties of Framing Tech shelving units with their T-slot system and wide selection of attachments. Think of the possibilities!

Custom shelves from Framing Tech