Firewood
Open mesh on all four sides means genuine airflow, which is the whole problem with wooden racks. A third of a cord per cage, stacks three high, and you can move a full one with a forklift.
Fabrication · 26 March 2026
Cage-only, the product nobody asks for
When a bottle is finished, what is left is a galvanised steel frame on a pallet with four-way forklift entry, for about twenty dollars. It is the most under-used thing in the yard.
- Sheet
- 27
- Revision
- 2026-10
- Scale
- 1:1
- Drawn at
- Peoria IL
$14–26Cage and pallet
44 cu ftUsable volume
3 highStackable
100%Reused steel
A composite IBC is three things: a bottle, a galvanised steel cage, and a pallet. When the bottle fails, two thirds of the container is still perfectly good — and most people throw all three away because the product has no name.
What you actually have is a stackable, forkliftable steel frame measuring roughly 48 by 40 by 46 inches, with four-way entry, 44 cubic feet of internal volume, rated to stack three high empty, for between fourteen and twenty-six dollars. There is no other product in industrial supply that does that at that price.
| Configuration | What we change | Common use | Typical price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bare cage and pallet | Nothing — wire-wheeled and squared | Racking inserts, bund frames | $14–26 |
| Firewood rack | Open mesh sides, hinged gate, raised deck | A third of a cord, air-dried | From $210 |
| Feed or salt bin | Bottle cut down as a liner, lid panel, scoop door | Farm dispensing | From $240 |
| Lockable gear crate | Steel panel sides, hasp, fork pockets retained | Jobsite and crane lifts | From $260 |
| Three-bay recycling station | Dividers and labelled chutes | Farms, shop floors | From $280 |
| Pallet rack insert | Base plate and guard panels | Awkward-shaped stock | From $190 |
Why it is under-used
- It is not in anybody's catalogue under a name a buyer would search for. 'IBC cage' returns pictures of whole containers.
- People assume a cage without a bottle is scrap, because the only context they have ever seen it in is as packaging for the bottle.
- The sellers who have them — reconditioners — make more margin on whole containers, so nobody advertises it.
- It looks like scrap. Wire-wheeled and squared it looks like equipment, and that is a four-minute job.
What the steel is actually good for
Bund and containment frames
The frame holds a liner or a tray in shape without welding anything. Cheap, movable secondary containment for drums and small vessels.
Equipment crates
Panel the sides, add a hasp, and you have a lockable, craneable, forkliftable crate for a fraction of a purpose-built one.
Rack inserts
Awkward stock — pipe offcuts, fittings, long goods — lives better in a cage on a beam than loose on the deck.
Compost and leaf bins
Four cages in a row with removable fronts is the cheapest municipal-scale compost setup we have seen anybody build.
Livestock feeders
Hay and round-bale feeders, with the mesh doing exactly what mesh should. Popular on the ag lanes every autumn.
Every single one of these starts with a container whose bottle went to the granulator. The polyethylene becomes 8–12 mm regrind for pipe and pallets; the steel does another decade of work. One failed container, two useful outcomes, and nothing in a hole.
What a cage will not do
- Hold liquid. Obviously, but worth saying — we get asked. A liner is not a tank.
- Carry a UN rating. The marking belongs to the complete design type. A cage on its own certifies nothing.
- Stack three high loaded. Three high is the empty rating. Loaded cages go two high at most and one high in transit.
- Survive being slung from the top rail. Fork it from the base, like everything else in this industry.
Need twenty cages for something specific?
Tell us what goes in them and how they get moved. Most of the configurations above started as somebody's napkin sketch.