Pallet Rack Manufacturers: Ridg-U-Rak
Ever have a question about a specific pallet rack brand, search for the answer, and come up empty? We have. There’s a lot of helpful information about pallet rack manufacturers that just isn’t readily available. Sometimes this creates information black holes, where the correct answer is anyone’s best guess. We’re going to do our best to help fix this problem with our guide to pallet rack manufacturers.
Need to identify your racking? Not sure how to refer to a specific product line? Confused about dimensions, colors, or capacities? Our goal is to help you. We’ll get started by talking about Ridg-U-Rak pallet rack.
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Ridg-U-Rak Accessories and Safety Products
Ridg-U-Rak Pallet Rack
Whether you’re used to spelling it “Ridgurak,” “Ridg U Rak,” “Ridg-U-Rack,” or the correct “Ridg-U-Rak,” you’ve probably heard of this manufacturer before. The North East, PA-based company has been in the rack business for more than 65 years and cranks out over 100 million pounds of rack-related product every year. In the six-plus decades they’ve been around, Ridg-U-Rak has actively participated in the innovation of new products designed to increase safety and storage capacity.
Let’s get into the products themselves.
Ridg-U-Rak Slotted
Although most of the pallet rack Ridg-U-Rak now sells is in the form of teardrop rack, the original Ridg-U-Rak design is a slotted one. Ridg-U-Rak’s slotted racking is sometimes simply referred to as “Ridg-U-Rak” style. The slotted frames feature a recognizable six-bend design that’s even included in the company’s logo. The hooks on the beam-to-column connectors and the slots in the upright frames give Ridg-U-Rak slotted another popular nickname: “hook-and-slot.”
Ridg-U-Rak’s slotted frames have 4” vertical adjustability for beam levels, half of what its teardrop line offers. Beams come equipped with automatic beam locking components to prevent being knocked out of place once installed.
One interesting thing to keep in mind when working with Ridg-U-Rak slotted pallet rack is beam length. Ridg-U-Rak used to not include the thickness of the beam’s connector plate in the official length. This meant that a 96” beam was really 96 3/8”. You may be thinking that 3/8” doesn’t sound like enough to make a difference. When it comes to pallet racking, though, fractions of an inch sometimes mean the difference between having interchangeable and totally incompatible products.
Ridg-U-Rak eventually conformed to the industry standard and included the connector width in the total beam length. However, some end users still use the longer beams, and because of that many distributors still stock them. Interested in learning more? Read ridg-u-rak slotted beam length.
Ridg-U-Rak Teardrop
The market moved toward teardrop-style pallet rack and Ridg-U-Rak produced a teardrop line of its own. Known today as “Ridg-U-Tier II,” Ridg-U-Rak’s teardrop design is popular for its ease of use, quick assembly, and versatility. The Ridg-U-Tier II beam is designed to be compatible with virtually every other teardrop pallet rack brand available. This is good for customers who have existing teardrop frames from a different manufacturer but want Ridg-U-Rak beams.
Ridg-U-Rak teardrop beams have a locking mechanism called the Springlock, which is designed to lock beams in place without slowing down installation.TheSpringlock clip’s unique shape makes it one of the easiest ways to identify a Ridg-U-Rak beam.
In 2014, Ridg-U-Rak changed the shape of its footplate — not just on teardrop racking, but on its slotted and structural designs as well. The new footplate is smaller than the previous model.
Structural Pallet Rack
As a brand, Ridg-U-Rak is associated with its six-bend roll formed pallet rack design. What may be less widely-known is that Ridg-U-Rak also makes structural pallet rack. If you’re not familiar with structural pallet rack, check out our video/blog article covering the differences between structural and roll formed pallet rack. Generally speaking, structural pallet rack tends to be stronger than roll formed, though Ridg-U-Rak’s structural and roll formed capacities are comparable.
A unique feature of Ridg-U-Rak’s structural pallet racking is that it’s available in both slotted and bolt-together connector styles. The structural slotted beam-to-frame connector style is similar in appearance to the roll formed slotted pallet rack and is adjustable on 4” centers. The bolt-together connector style is adjustable on 2” centers, offering a bit more versatility when adjusting beam heights. Ridg-U-Rak also offers a hybrid structural-teardrop pallet rack option. A Ridg-U-Rak hybrid system consists of slotted structural upright frames and roll formed beams.
Ridg-U-Rak Capacities
As with any pallet rack manufacturer, it’s important to adhere to maximum capacity limits. Ridg-U-Rak provides capacity ratings for their pallet rack beams and upright frames so that end users will know how much they can store on their racking and what kinds of frames or beams they’ll need in order to hold it.
Below are the capacity charts for both Ridg-U-Rak Slotted and Ridg-U-Rak Teardrop frames and beams.
Ridg-U-Rak Teardrop Frame Capacities
Ridg-URak Teardrop Beam Capacities
Ridg-U-Rak Slotted Frame Capacities
Ridg-U-Rak Slotted Beam Capacities
Accessories and Safety Products
To complement their primary product lines, Ridg-U-Rak also has several safety products on offer. These include column protectors, pallet rack load stops, pallet rack beam clips, and safety bars.
In addition to warehouse safety products, Ridg-U-Rak also has some common and not-so-common accessories in its lineup. These accessories may not be on the menu for your everyday selective pallet rack customer, but it doesn’t hurt to know they’re available should the situation call for it. A few examples of these accessories include pallet rack catwalk supports, aisle bridges, coil cradles, fork entry bars, and drum cradles.
Engineered Pallet Rack Systems
Most of what we’ve covered leading up to this point has been about selective pallet rack. A quick refresher: selective pallet racking refers to pallet rack systems consisting of upright frames and cross beams, along with some form of decking and sometimes accessories. Most importantly, a selective pallet rack system will provide direct access to all of the items being stored.
Historically, selective pallet racking has been the most common form of warehouse storage rack and continues to be today. However, there’s growing demand for more complex, engineered pallet rack systems that are more tailored to the client organization’s needs. Examples of these systems include push back rack, drive in pallet rack, pallet flow, and carton flow rack.
Ridg-U-Rak, while well-known for their teardrop and slotted selective pallet rack products, also manufactures engineered rack systems. Their catalog includes drive in rack, push back, pallet flow, and pick modules. For certain applications, these systems will provide an advantage in terms of storage efficiency over standard selective rack.
Learn More about Ridg-U-Rak Pallet Rack
Ready to learn more about Ridg-U-Rak products? Get in touch with us! Each member of our sales team has years of material handling experience and can help you with your material handling questions. For more information on our product offering, please head to our Ridg-U-Rak pallet rack page or reach out to us for product literature. We hope this information was helpful and that you’ll stop back for more news, product info, tutorials, and more.
Phoenix, AZ 85009