A 6-meter steel tube laid on the workshop floor occupies a strip of space that could hold a workbench, a press, or a forklift lane. Leave a dozen tubes, bars, and profiles lying around and the floor becomes a maze: workers climb over bundles to reach the size they need, material edges get dented, and nobody can tell what is in stock without walking the whole shop. The Herochu heavy duty manual pipe storage rack for workshop use puts that material upright, compartmentalized, and within reach of a single crane hook — without needing electricity, hydraulics, or wide aisles to do it.
Why Workshop Pipe Storage Fails When It Stays on the Floor
Ground storage of long steel is cheap only until you count what it actually costs:
- Floor area. A bundle of 6 m tubes laid flat ties up the whole footprint. Stack them higher than two layers and retrieval becomes a wrestling match.
- Search time. A fitter who spends twenty minutes hunting for one specific diameter is not cutting, welding, or earning.
- Damage. Tubes dragged across each other pick up scratches and edge dents that scrap a precision cut later in the process.
- Safety. Rolling, sliding, or toppling bundles are among the most common handling injuries in metal workshops. A bundle that shifts under a worker’s weight can pin a leg against the next rack.
The manual crank rack removes these four problems at once, which is why Herochu designed the HC-G series specifically for workshop conditions: medium floor space, one overhead crane, and a crew that needs material on demand.
How the Manual Crank Mechanism Works
The operating principle is deliberately simple. The operator stands at the rack face, turns the hand crank, and a gear-and-rack mechanism drives the cantilever shelves outward to 100% extension. The crane hook comes down, lifts the selected bundle or loose piece straight off the arms, and the shelves roll back into the frame. No wide aisle, no pallet truck, no reaching over stacked material.
Two details make this practical on a shop floor:
- Dual-side mechanical assistance. Both sides of the rack can be operated, so a rack placed against a wall still serves the working side fully, and a free-standing double unit serves two bays at once.
- Fully manual power source. The crank works in a power cut, needs no compressed air, and has no hydraulic cylinders to leak or service. The only maintenance is periodic greasing of the drive and the rollers.
Because the operator controls speed by hand, a worker can inch a heavy bundle out slowly, verify the sling position, and lift with full visibility. On an electrically driven rack, that control step is automated away; on the manual version it stays with the person doing the lifting.
What the Herochu Rack Delivers on the Shop Floor
The HC-G series is built around four working features:
Independent compartments per tier. Each level carries dedicated storage on both sides of the frame, so different diameters, grades, or job numbers never share a bay. A tier can hold 25 mm round bar on the left and 48.3 mm scaffold tube on the right without mixing.
High load capacity. Every compartment is rated for 3–5 tons (3,000–5,000 kg) depending on model, which covers bundles of pipe that would crush a standard bolt-together shelf.
Customizable classification storage. Tier heights, compartment widths, and the 600 mm clear space are all adjustable at order time. Herochu engineers lay out the rack against your actual material list — not against a catalogue drawing.
Robust structure. The frame is welded from Q235B high-strength steel with a dual-beam crossbar design, so the rack keeps its geometry under asymmetric loading — a full bundle on one side, an empty bay on the other — instead of racking out of square.
The rack also accepts bundled and loose material alike. Bundles drop straight onto the arms from the crane; loose bars sit in the compartments without netting because the side guards and fixed compartment dividers hold them in place. For offcuts, a tray option catches remnants so short pieces stay organized instead of disappearing under the bench.
Choosing the Right Model for Your Workshop
| Model No. | Pipe Length | Max. Load per Level | Number of Layers |
|---|---|---|---|
| HC-G6053S | 6,000 mm | 3,000 kg | 5 (customizable) |
| HC-G6053 | 6,000 mm | 3,000 kg | 5 (customizable) |
| HC-G9065 | 9,000 mm | 5,000 kg | 6 (customizable) |
| HC-G12065 | 12,000 mm | 5,000 kg | 6 (customizable) |
Clear space is 600 mm as standard and customizable; material discharge on all models is dual-side mechanical assistance.
For a general fabrication shop running 6 m stock, the HC-G6053S or HC-G6053 is the workhorse choice: five tiers, 3,000 kg per level, and a footprint roughly equal to the material length itself. Shops handling 9 m or 12 m line pipe step up to the HC-G9065 or HC-G12065, which trade a lower tier count for the extra 5,000 kg per level that full-length bundles demand. If your stock list mixes lengths, Herochu will mix tier heights in one frame — 6 m bays on the bottom, 3 m bays above — so the vertical space above short material is not wasted.
Fitting the Rack into the Workflow
Installation is a crane lift and anchor-down. The rack sits on a level concrete floor, is bolted in place, and the crane operator uses the same hook for storage and production feeding. Material moves from rack to terminal directly — saw, laser, or cut-off — without an intermediate pile on the floor. Shops that run the rack alongside a laser or band saw typically report that material lookup drops from minutes to seconds, because every bay is labelled and every size has a fixed home.
FAQ
Do I need power, air, or hydraulics to operate the rack? No. The manual crank drives the shelves mechanically, so the rack works anywhere, including in a power cut.
Can the rack store loose bars as well as bundles? Yes. Compartment dividers and side guards hold loose material in place, and bundled material is handled directly by crane.
How much weight can one compartment take? 3,000–5,000 kg per level depending on the model, with custom ratings available on request.
Can the rack be customized to my material sizes? Yes. Layer count, clear space, and compartment layout are customized at order time against your material list.
Get a Layout for Your Shop
A rack only earns its floor space when it matches the material you actually store. Send Herochu your stock list — diameters, lengths, bundle weights, and quantities — and the Herochu engineering team will return a bay layout, load calculations, and a quotation for the right HC-G model. The manual crank pipe rack is the simplest way to take long steel off the floor and put it to work.
