Herochu Industrial Sheet Metal Racks
Warehouse-grade towers that turn loose plates into a searchable library — CE / UE / ISO 9001 — from $3,099
A 6 m sheet of 4 mm stainless weighs more than a grand piano and costs twice as much per square metre, yet most warehouses still park it against a wall like yesterday’s broom. Herochu’s HC-B forklift cartridge system ends the concert of slipping, scratching, and double-handling. Every plate lives on its own extendable cradle, numbered, reachable in under thirty seconds, and protected from the forklift kisses that convert margin into scrap. Starting at $3,099 the entry bay pays for itself the fourth time you don’t have to restack three bundles just to reach the one job that ships tomorrow.
Maximum load is a red herring
An Argentine distributor recently demanded 3 t per layer because bigger felt safer. We asked for his last twelve months of pick tickets: average outbound weight was 1.1 t. Designing for three tonnes would have pushed uprights from 8 mm to 12 mm, widened the aisle for a 5 t truck, and forced him to pour new concrete. We dialled back to 2 t per drawer, kept the safety factor at 1.65, shaved 600 mm off aisle width, and freed 210 m² for extra laser stations. Lesson: capacity should chase cash-flow, not specification sheets.
Forklift height is the real architect
The tallest bay we can build is 6 m, but the useful altitude is whatever your truck can reach minus 200 mm mast deflection and 100 mm operator fudge factor. A standard 3 t counterbalance with 4.5 m lift services five active drawers plus a top static shelf—six usable levels. Move to a 5 t reach truck at 6 m and seven drawers appear without widening the bay. Our online configurator greys-out impossible tiers the moment you enter mast data; no spreadsheet gymnastics, no site visit fee.
Drawer movement that respects the driver
Integrated pull-out means the cradle rolls on four sealed cam-follower bearings, induction-hardened rails, and a captive stop that prevents coast-back on sloping floors. Pull force stays below 25 kg even when the drawer carries 3 t of 20 mm plate—one operator, no second pair of hands, no waiting for the overhead crane. Optional 24 V DC power-assist adds 30 mm/s traverse and auto-retract when the fork pockets clear; consumption is 0.08 kWh per cycle—less than the coffee machine.
From 3 m to 6 m without a cutting torch on site
HC-B3015-63 stores 3 m × 1.5 m sheets five-up plus a weather roof in only 3.5 m of floor length. Need to swallow 6 m × 2 m plate? HC-B6020-66 keeps the same 800 mm aisle, grows to 6.5 m long, and still fits under a standard 4.5 m lift truck. All bays bolt together with fish-plates and eight M16 bolts; expand Saturday morning, cut parts Monday afternoon. Every upright is laser-cut from 8 mm S355 on a 3 kW fibre line, tolerance ±0.1 mm, so replacement parts seat first time—even five years down the road.
Ground loading that keeps landlords calm
A fully-loaded HC-B6020-66 weighs 9.2 t and spreads it over four 200 × 200 mm footplates—115 kN/m², less than a loaded pallet jack on two wheels. If your slab is cracked or fibre-reinforced we supply 8 mm plate spreaders free; no epoxy anchors required. Moving to a rented building? Bolt-on levelling feet let you relocate the entire bank in four hours, leaving only four 14 mm holes to fill with cement.
Safety engineers stop talking, start nodding
- Anti-sway spine: 6 mm laser-cut diaphragm ties every drawer rail into a shear wall, eliminating lateral whip when the crane travels.
- Double-pawl safety pin: forged, 5 t shear, visible safety-red, removable only when drawer is empty.
- Photoelectric presence bar: optional across drawer mouth; if boots break the beam the DC motor reverses 100 mm—no PLC, no programming.
- Earth bonding: 16 mm copper busbar factory-welded to every frame; stainless and aluminium stay free of stray-current pitting.
- Load plaque: embossed aluminium, not a sticker, listing exact SWL and serial number for insurance audits.
Sheet tower, cartridge, cassette—language doesn’t matter, throughput does
Call it what you want; the maths is the same. Five drawers replace fifteen pallets, 1.2 m aisle replaces 4 m, and one forklift replaces a forklift plus a crane dogman. A UK job-shop installed four HC-B4020-65 bays and clocked 38 % faster laser change-over the first month—enough to cancel a planned second shift.
ROI you can defend in a finance meeting
Assume 150 t of sheet in inventory at $800 per ton and a conservative 2 % scrap rate from double-handling. That’s $2,400 walking to the skip every year. Add eight picks per day, three minutes saved per pick, at $60 crane hour and you bank another $6,000 in labour. A five-drawer HC-B4020-65 costs $4,199 ex-works; payback is 5.2 months—before you count faster laser utilisation, reduced overtime, and the marketing value of showing auditors a “world-class” material store.
Sustainability that fits the ESG slide
Steel content is 97 % recycled, but the real green win is damage avoidance. Every plate that skips the scrap bin saves 1.8 t CO₂ versus remelt. Prevent 5 t of scrap per year and you erase the emissions of two family cars—without installing a single solar panel.
Colour, capacity, control—customise in three clicks
Orange/blue is standard because safety studies show the contrast cuts forklift incidents by 12 %. Prefer corporate grey with yellow stripes? No MOQ, no up-charge. Arms, trays, pitch, load, motor, and colour are all configurable in the same BOM. We laser-cut, pre-assemble, and photograph every bay under LED light so you know the fit before it leaves the factory.
Shipping & pricing—no bait, no switch
$3,099 buys HC-B3015-63 starter: five pull-out drawers plus static roof, 2 t per drawer, 3 m × 1.5 m sheets, FOB Shanghai. Add $189 per extra drawer, $349 per bolt-on bay. Full 6 m monster (HC-B6020-66) lands around $7,900—still less than the invoice for one scrapped aerospace plate. LCL or 40 ft HQ quotes in 12 h; payment by LC, Net 30, or Shopify Pay—your call.
Next step—see it glide
Scan the QR code on herochu.com and watch a 52-second clip: one operator pulls a 10 mm HR plate, loads onto a waiting laser shuttle, and registers “issued” in the ERP—total elapsed 19 s. Then book a 15-min Teams slot; we’ll drop a 3-D STEP model of your exact aisle into your inbox while we’re still talking.
Stop using floor space like it’s free and start treating every sheet like it’s already a finished part. Herochu Industrial Sheet Metal Racks: protect the plate, protect the profit, from $3,099 today.
