DIY can-rotating shelves.

Ryan here. I, like many around the world, have always wanted a cool shelf system that rotates my cans for me by date of purchase. You know, the ones where you put the new cans in at the top of the slanted shelf system and take them out at the bottom, thus preventing the hassle of having to manually rotate your cans by date of purchase. So I looked into these shelving systems and found that if you want a half decent one that holds a respectable number of cans you'll be looking at spending several hundred dollars for it. Downer.
(To see these shelving systems for yourself you can follow this link to one such company: http://www.yourfoodstorage.com/storage_shelves?gclid=COuus7mHwpkCFd1L5QodnBb_sg)

So, being a thrifty gent by nature and having just enough pluck to get myself in over my head as often as not, I decided to figure out a way to make a cool can-rotating shelf system without having to pay the several hundred dollar price tag. The result was encouraging enough to make this post, in case anyone else might like to give the same thing a try.

For the foundation I used a shelf system that we had purchased previously from Sam's Club for about $60 (seen below stacked with a jumble of cans and assorted pantry items). I think the brand of the shelves was "Gorilla" something. At least I remember that the box had a gorilla on it. Note that the shelf system has holes in the vertical bars so that you can put the shelves at any level you want.
Also note the rampant disorganization of our storage area. This is the main thing that prompted me to find a more efficient way of storing our pantry goods.

After many hours of thinking about how the rotating shelf systems work, I figured out what I'd need and how to convert our current shelving system into a system that rotated cans. Here's the formula, as quick and simple as I can make it. If you want more detail just leave a comment and I can explain any of it in more depth.

First, I moved two of the shelves close enough together that a can could rotate around the back of the top shelf and come down onto the back of the bottom shelf.
Then, I set the front support of the top shelf one hole higher than its back support and the back support of the bottom shelf one hole higher than its front support (Front = left in pic; Back = right in pic). This makes it so that a can would roll backward on the top shelf and forward on the bottom shelf. (See the pic below for a visual extravaganza.)

Then, I needed something to guide the cans in separate rows. We had an old coffee table we were never going to use again so I convinced Erin to let me cut it into strips that I could use to guide the can rows. To see how many rows I could fit on each shelf I just took a can and laid it down on the shelf, then moved it from one end to the other, adding the width needed for the plywood divider strips for each row. I could fit eight rows of cans on our shelf system.

I had to cut dividers that were as long as the bottom shelf was deep and as long as the top shelf was deep PLUS an extra 4 inches or so to give the cans room enough to fall off the back of the top shelf before hitting the sheet-metal scoop that would guide them onto the bottom shelf (to be explained soon).
Here's a pic of the coffee table marked to be cut. Note that some of the strips are marked longer than others. The longer strips are for the top shelf, shorter for the bottom shelf.

Next, I took some leftover sheet-metal that we had from another project and cut it to length to be screwed to the end of the top shelf's dividers, bend down, and be screwed underneath the dividers of the bottom shelf. Then I screwed all the dividers into place on their respective shelves. The result was a system where the top shelf feeds the cans toward the back and then the cans fall off the back of the top shelf onto a sheet-metal scoop that feeds them onto the back of the bottom shelf, where the cans roll forward.

The finishing touches were screwing sheet-metal strips from the back of the top shelf's dividers to the back of the bottom shelf's dividers to guide the cans in their own rows while traveling down the sheet-metal scoop and screwing a narrow board onto the front of the bottom shelf's dividers to stop the cans from rolling right off the front of the bottom shelf. (See pic below.)

The result of it all was an 8-row, self-rotating, can-dispensing shelf system that cost about $80-90, total. Each row will hold about 16 cans, using two shelves, for a total rotation capacity of around 128 cans!
Plus, there are several other shelves left to hold boxed items, sports equipment, etc. And if you want, you could always add another couple shelves into the mix, either feeding onto the same 8 rows or as a separate set or rows on the same frame.

By the way, it took me a whole day to put this all together. And what did I do with our then-7 month old son, Grant, during that time? I corralled him into the living room with chairs so he couldn't get in the way or get hurt. Poor kid.

In the end, though, he gave the result his stamp of approval.