Building an Octagon Rack

Technically the first version of the rack isn't fully octagon. Its more oval shaped. In order to go full octagon, I would have had to use square pallets that were custom made. On the angle sides of the racks, the slant doesn't support good firewood stacking - but the rack scores some points on the coolness scale.

Octagon Rack with Firewood

In V1-0-1 you will notice the red 4x4's inserted in order to make an even stack. The remaining space on the left and the right could be used as tool shelves which really come in handy in the woodyard. However, the spacing is not equal due to the non-equal size of the pallets. Lets make some revisions.

A Square Pallet

The pallet below is 4x4 instead of 3.3 x 4.

Full Octagon Pallet Base

Here we have 5 pallets @ dimensions of 4'x4' for the bottom of our rack - lets start the build.

Adding the Posts

The posts are 8 feet high. There are 14 in all. Use treated would if you have the option or to keep expenses down look for 5 gallons of barn paint which will help preserve the wood. This particular rack style is not intended to be moved so take the time to plan and pick your location ahead of time. I recommend timber lock screws as they will hold tighter but if timber locks are not an option, then you can use standard 6" outdoor wood screws. You will need an impact driver to put them in. I suggest pre-drilling your holes in the 4x4 with a smaller bit (1/16 to 1/8) depending on which screws you use. I would use no less than 4 screws per joint but 6 is recommended. Depending on where you are you may have to account for wind so the stronger you make it, the longer the rack will last.

Creating the Shelves

I'm already not liking what I am seeing here. I added the blue skewbox mesh shelf pieces  in to test my theory. Although the pallets are square being 4x4, I had hoped that I could "swipe" some technology from the Holz Hausen method and using that stacking would work - but it did not. The problem with that theory is that the diameter of my circle isn't large enough to encompass the 1/8 turn that I am trying to achieve (reference the math for plotting a circle - # of points in it). I'm not ready to give up though, lets take another approach.

Testing the larger footprint

At first appearance we may have found our solution - although each section of the rack is not the same length, it still has an octagon like shape. A wood rack must be functional and look good and work for drying wood - a 3 fold purpose. The reason to move to and octagon rack is for customer presentation and drying so that wind can get to all areas of the rack at the same time. The two pieces of "red" plywood that are added are up to you. They will block the wind to a certain extent but it does make the structure look more complete. When selling firewood you want to have many different quantities of wood available so that each customer can select the amount they want. The red section will hold 1/3 of a cord on the bottom, and 1/4 on top being 8 feet long. The yellow areas are 1/6 of a cord and 1/8 of a cord offer lots of options. If you wish you can leave one opening through the yellow posts so that you customers can walk into the center and few all of the wood at once - that would be a nice feature. If you'll notice, in order to add the "red" wood neatly, there is a diagonally ripped 4x4 on the inner circle so that the rack shelves will be square.

Lets add wood

Now our structure is complete, we have the optional walkway for consideration, and we have wood. If you leave the entry way this rack holds about 3.2 cords of wood. Without the walkway you would have 3.5 cords. Another alternative is to remove the shelf from the yellow rack directly across from the entry way showed below - that way you would have a full walk through - much like a theme park. If you look closely at this design, we are still not all that far from the octagon shape. All we would have to do is double the size of the yellow sections and we have reached our goal - but this design below is was definitely worth building. Shall we take the final step? Indeed!

Persistence pays off

Let there be an Octagon Firewood Rack! Now there is a double row of pallets internally. The yellow racks are at full length. With the single door walk-in there is a capacity of 4 cords and without the walk in, 4.64 cords. I would recommend putting treated plywood over the pallets if people are going to walk inside. You might even want to cut pallets diagonally (watch the nails if you didn't build the pallets yourself - and perhaps, even if you did) to patch the four triangular holes so there is a complete internal walking space. From inside, a customer can see all the wood all at one. You can then segment each rack to make smaller divisions of wood if desired and you have a nice looking functional rack that people don't often see - who could ask for more?