Steel lengths?

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Did a search on this and found one thread that said 20' lengths.My local steel dealer sells steel in 24' lengths, is this normal?Twenty four foot lengths is an ungodly length of steel to try and carry home without paying them to cut it.I just started toying around with building a rack for my trailer to haul 24' lengths.  How do you all carry yours home???Is this an industry size???
Reply:How do you all carry yours home???
Reply:All of my angle, flat bar and pipe comes in 20 footers, the box tube comes in 24's and solid shafts and squares come in 12' sections. Channel comes in either 20's or 24's depending on supplier and I beam is the same. Sheet and plate comes in 4x8, 4x10 and 5x10's. That's all the sizes of what I use on a regular basis. DaveI am what I am, Deal with it!If necessity is the Mother of Invention, I must be the Father of Desperation!
Reply:How do you all carry it home?Or do you have them deliver?
Reply:In Australia  mild steel angles etc are available in 9.0 and 7.0 meter lengths . Stainless is usually 6.0m , ally 6.5m.A good guess is better than a bad measurement
Reply:I have bought steel plates 10 feet X 40 feet. I used it build a boat hull.Two sheets. Large tankers are welded with 20 foot X 40 foot plates. Lots of them.If you want you can get 14 inch thick plates. Like the Golden Gate Bridge used for the base of the towers. There were 8 plates as large as a football field and held together with dowels. Each tanker ship could carry one plate at a time.
Reply:I get mine in 20 ft lengths also. My supplier will make as many cuts as I want for free. If I don't have it cut I load it on a car hauler and let it hang out a couple feet.
Reply:Tim M.What size trailer do you have?We can get 24' lengths on the rack of the Crew cab at work. Rack goes all the way to the bumper up front.Here's a few suggestions and thoughts.Depending on the length of your truck, and if you only need to move 1-2 pieces a short way, try slinging them UNDER the truck. I can get about 20' under my F250 super cab. I set it over the front and rear axles and strap the Pi$$ out of it. Usually ratchet straps that I wrap around and cinch them down tight. If its thin you will need some intermediate straps or wire to support the middle.My old truck I had a T shaped bar that I could install in the 2" receiver and set to the top of the ladder rack. I built this so it would extend about 3' back from the truck and give me support for longer pieces. I built a similar T for the front and made a bracket that bolted to my plow frame ( you could attach to the bumper or tow points). This would let me get over 20' between the T's.Before I built the rack for the truck, I made a set of brackets that used to hang from the side of the truck bed and window on the pass side. They were sort of a square S shape to hook over the side and support light material. (I held up long pieces of moldings) The front got a bit tricky but I could get a support at the front by using a strap and making a loop. I attached the strap under the hood and closed the hood after I secured it. Pad the back of the S's and wrap the front with an old towel to protect the paint. The straps to secure this sometimes went completely around the bed If I had no other choice.On our 14' trailer we can load 20' lengths of rebar and they only stick out off the back about 6". Run the lengths up the middle and stop right at the hitch.Last off. I try and figure out what large lengths I can work with. I want to build a rack for the new truck. The other day I found a decent price on 24' lengths of Alum to build it. There really was no way I could get the lengths home in one piece. (I had to go over 200 miles.) 16' is the longest I feel comfortable with on the ladder brackets on the side. So I just cut them down myself to 12' and 15'6". Always nice to have battery and gas power tools on hand if you need them. The 12' ones fit in the back and the 2 15'6" ones strapped on the ladder brackets. The new rack will eventually either get a front T like the old rig or will extend all the way to the front bumper in the future.BTW an extension ladder makes a great temporary rack up to the front T I talked about before. A couple of short 2x's taped to the ladder will keep everything roughly flat. This gives you full length support for thin flexible stock like flat bar.Good luck.
Reply:from everyone that i have talked to, there is no legal limit as to the length that something can stick out the back of your truck, as long as it's red-flagged. i usually have the supplier deliver it to work (free shipping that way), then cut what i need at work. i can then haul it home in my car. if i need larger pieces, like i did a while ago, i have the supplier cut it into 10' lengths, lay it diagonal in a truck bed (cross-corner) and flag it just to be sure that it's legal (some DOT guys are jerks out here). my guys can also deliver it to my house for $35, but it's cheaper to use my dad's gas in his truck than it is to have them deliver it. lolLater,Andy
Reply:DSW/Others,Thanks for the replies.I have seen folks strap stuff under their trucks like you described and I thought about it too but don't have enough room to try safely.I have a 14' trailer that I started making a rack on today.  I bought two receiver hitches from tractor supply and a bunch of 2" square tubing.  I mounted one just behind the hitch on the tongue and the other will be at the rear.  That will give me 5' over hang each end or more likely, less at the rear and more towards the front.  I am going to make the vertical posts high enough so that it goes OVER my truck cab.  Reason being, if I ever got rear ended (while hauling) by a high profile vehicle, the steel will hopefully go over my head and not through it.I figure when I'm done it will resemble two mini foot ball field goal posts.   I may add another one in the center if need be.I love to versatility of those receiver tubes.Thanks for the great info.
Reply:In Las Vegas, most flats and tubes are 20', but some of the larger tubes are 24', black pipe is usually 21'.Here in PNG, most tubes are available in 6m or 8m.
Reply:you can special order most structurals to 88 feeti have done the strap under, works well for the occassional piecesinsert thoughtful quote from someone else2000 Thermal Arc 300GTSW 3.5 hours1946 Monarch 20 x 54 Lathe1998 Supermax 10x54 Mill2004 Haco Atlantic 1/2" Capacity Lasernot mine but i get to play with it
Reply:I call...They deliver.If I do pick it up myself, I have a rack on my truck to haul 24' lengths4'x8' sheets fit in the bed.
Reply:Haul it on my welding truck,headache rack and slip in posts at back of bed 8' from headache rack. I`ve hauled 40' I`s on it several times with a flag. No problems.Square tubing 24', angle, flats and rounds in 20', pipe 21',used upset tubing 29' to 34'.
Reply:All the pipe I get is 21 feet. All the beam, channel, square tubes, round and square solids are 20 feet. Occasionally I get something 24 feet, but it just depends on what he can get. The way the market is right now you are stuck with what the broker has. I have 4 different suppliers I can use and for the last year plates and sheets are 4 X 8 or nothing. I just got some odd size 6 inch I beam in 40 foot lengths (saved quite a bit on the steel and charged the customer to cut it to length for hauling since it worked in to what I was going to have to do anyway). Hauled it to the yard on a flatbed one ton. We have an 18 foot trailer we use for 20 and 24 foot lengths. If it is a heavy load we have access to a large rolloff wrecker.The difference between art and craft is the quality of the workmanship. I am an artist.
Reply:Ask them about cut charges.  Frequently they will do one or two cuts per length for free.Sometimes they charge you more for cuts then for the metal, so be careful.Tim