Machine shop conditions are more complex than an ordinary warehouse: heavy oil, abundant metal chips, heavy workpieces, frequent turnover. When choosing warehouse cages, you must not look only at price; you must target the three characteristics—oil, chips, heavy load—otherwise within months you get rusted cages and leaking ones.
Choose a grid base or solid flat base, not a fine-mesh base. Machining blanks are heavy and have burrs; fine mesh bottoms are easily deformed by pressure and are also hard to clean of chips. Grid bottoms have large openings, high strength, and let chips fall through for easy cleaning. For finishing parts that must not be bumped, choose a solid flat base with rubber mats to prevent parts from scratching each other.
Choose hot-dip galvanizing or powder coating as the surface treatment—not electro-galvanizing. Machine shops have heavy oil and high humidity; electro-galvanized layers are thin and rust easily; hot-dip galvanized layers are over 80 microns thick and corrosion-resistant, suiting oily environments; powder-coated surfaces are smooth and oil-repellent, wiping clean with one pass. If the shop has washing processes, consider acid-alkali-resistant surface treatment.
Select load rating by actual workpieces. Machining blanks can weigh tens of kilograms per basket; after stacking, the bottom layer bears enormous load, so choose heavy-duty warehouse cages with wire diameter 6 mm or above and post wall thickness 2 mm or above. Keep stacking layers within three; do not chase height. The forklift slot openings must match the dimensions of your in-plant forklift forks to avoid picking inconvenience.
The door design also matters. Machining parts are irregular and have burrs, so double doors are more practical than upward-hinged flip doors for picking and placing parts. If you are holding heat-treated parts, you also need heat-resistant surface treatment. Nanjing Tongnuo Warehouse Equipment Manufacturing Co., Ltd. has served many machining customers; we support custom cages tailored to workpiece dimensions and shop conditions, with sampling and trial installation before mass production.