Wall Mounted Can Organizer (2019) | Hacker News Reader

Wall Mounted Can Organizer (2019)

ana-white.com

48 pointsstacktrust18 comments

Nice project, but it does assume one product per column, and that all cans are a standard size. Maybe a solution for the canned goods you use most frequently...

Rotate 90 degrees, omit the acrylic, easy access to all cans. Maybe not practical for earthquake prone regions, but hard to beat the space you gain from solutions like this in small apartments.

Removing easy access to all cans was a design goal:

> the problem was keeping only one kind of can in each row - if one person went rouge on you, it's was all over

It would be rosy cheeks everywhere!

> if one person went rouge on you, it's was all over

Sure, but who keeps their makeup in the kitchen?

Seriously, though, yeah... This build was for the author themselves, so as long as they like it, it was successful. But it's also a great example of the sort of elegant problem solving engineers (like my dad... Almost exactly) would implement unilaterally without consulting the people that use the kitchen far more than he does. This is why designers exist.

In this case it also has decorative purposes: horizontal shelving in this space would be boring. So it sacrifices utility for the sake of decor.

Like I said, since the author made it for themselves, it's successful if they like it. But as a former chef with an art degree that tertiarily included both sculpture and interior design, I disagree that the decorative component of this furniture makes up for the lack of utility in the way most people use canned food.

I understand that this fixed the author's issue, so if it works for them it works for them.

But, it also assumes only 5 common can types and a lot of wall space. The latter is the real killer for a small house as wall space is at a huge premium, being the only place you can put cupboards (even when the room sizes are large enough to support islands, walls are still the only real place for tall things).

If I had a square metre of wall to devote and did this, I'd subdivide this horizontally and have, say, 15 short columns in 3 rows rather than 5 long ones. If I really have so many of a specific type of can in stock that they don't fit, they can have two columns.

Maybe a mechanical engineer could answer this with confidence...

Since one of the stated purposes is to "rotate" (FIFO) the stock of cans, if you use the 18-inch tall plexiglass front, what's the risk of damaging the cans when dropping them down?

If there's even approx. 1/8 inch left-to-right wiggle room, it seems a can lid edge can strike the side of another can near its lid edge. Can this unseal? If so, how visible would it be?

Can this unseal?

No. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_seam

I can look at that and guess, but I was thinking a mechanical engineer might be able to speak more about why, than my own intuition.

Off the top of my head: Make the plexiglass removable (lift to remove/drop to fix in place) OR in a groove at the bottom, fasteners at the top. This would remove any issues with insertion drops and allow swaps.

People can go rogue with any vending device - they all have flaws!

How many drops of cans and removals of cans (causing the whole stack of cans to drop a short distance at the same time), until it breaks?

Doesn't the plastic from the can liner leaches out into the food. Presumably the longer you keep it the more it would leach out. I usually go for glass containers for this reason. On the other hand if the nukes go flying, having a can organizer of luxury campbell soups could be a life saver.

If you can afford fresh food, having enough preserved foods to require an organizer is a sign that you have room to improve your diet.

My local supermarket (in Japan) sells canned soup in a rack like this. It's a bit looser and the cans come out horizontally at the bottom and hit a stopper, so you grab one from the top rather than the sides. The one in the article is more compact.

I like Ana White's stuff. I built her Rustic X bookshelf with a few changes to follow Exact Constraint methods and it seems just fine.

Looks very similar to the arrangement inside a vending machine.

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