Patent ID: 8011318

Claim:
An article support system for supporting articles that are to be painted and stained, said system comprising: a plurality of stanchions being positioned and upwardly extending from a support surface, each of said stanchions including a top wall, a bottom wall and a perimeter wall extending between said top wall and said bottom wall, said stanchions being independent of each other such that each forms a single vertical support being uncoupled to other ones of said stanchions; a plurality of span assemblies, at least one of said span assemblies being removably mounted to a pair of said stanchions and at least one more of said span assemblies being removably mounted to another pair of said stanchions, wherein there are at least four of said stanchions and that for every pair of said stanchions there is at least one of said span assemblies, said span assemblies being unattached to each other and supporting the articles above the support surface when the articles are placed on and extending between said span assemblies positioned adjacent each other; each of said span assemblies including a housing extending between the associated pair of said stanchions, said housing including a top face to support the articles placed on the associated one of said span assemblies, wherein at least one of said span assemblies includes: a spooling rod being rotatably coupled to and positioned in said housing; a drop cloth being coupled to and spooled onto said spooling rod, said drop cloth being extendable through a slot in a front face of said housing, said drop cloth being extended from one of said span assemblies and removably coupled to another one of said span assemblies to collect the paint and the stain that drips from the articles, said drop cloth lying below a plane of said top faces of said housings of said span assemblies between which said drop cloth extends, said spooling rod being biased to roll said drop cloth on to said spooling rod when said drop cloth is not being extended between said span assemblies; and wherein said span assemblies may be removably stacked directly on each other such that articles are positioned between stacked ones of said span assemblies.