questions on building a rack case

[i am demo man]

Hi,
When building a rack case that will have a carpet exterior, do you build to spec and then glue on the carpet or glue the carpet on to the exterior walls and assemble it afterward? Does thickness of carpet play a role in measuring for perfect fit of the gear to be housed in it?

Just how whould you do this. Any persons with experience in this, I'd love to hear your advice.

Thank you,
I Am Demo Man

[DDev]

You would probably want to put the carpet on after the unit is constructed (go to a music shop and look at their racks to see).

The internal width of the rack needs to be about 19 1/8 inches to ensure your components will line up with the mounting rails and still leave a little bit of room to actually get the components into the rack. Whatever carpet you use needs to be trimmed to not impede this width by more than 1/8 of an inch. If you look at commercially available carpeted racks you will find that the fabric they use is very thin (probably thinner than the backing mesh on normal carpet, even).

Hope this helps.
Darryl.....

[Velvet Elvis]

Demo man,

Build the box and carpet later... that way all of your screw holes etc are covered up by the carpet.

Yes, the carpet certainly needs to be taken into consideration to make an accurate fit for the rack rails.

You need to add 2 x the thickness of the carpet to the inside measurements of the rack if you are planning on wrapping the carpet around the edges, otherwise the rails will be too tight and your gear won't fit.

So, say you need 19 1/2 inches from edge to edge for your rack rails (this is for demonstration purposes... I don't know what the actual measurement would be), and your carpet is 1/8 of an inch thick... your side wall would then have to be 19 3/4 inches apart (19 1/2 + 1/8 + 1/8). Same would occur in the top to bottom measurements.

Tip: I use 3M super 77 adhesive spray to attach the carpet t my racks and it works GREAT... very easy to use... but VERY tacky... get it right the first time because it won't come off once attached.

Velvet Elvis