DIY Racks

[Squashki]

Hi,

I'm planning on building my own rack furniture to put my mixer on top and put my rack equipment in underneath.
I am going to build the body itself on my own, but are there any of the parts that I could drill in to the inside sides of the body to hold up the units. In other words, I need the metal bits that you screw/slide the compressor etc into and that supports it, I need these parts on their own, preferably to order from the UK.

Does anyone know what I'm getting at? And where or if I can find them?

Thanks

[SonicAlbert]

Are you referring to rack rails? Pretty much any full service music merchandiser will have those. In the US you can get them from Musician's Friend, American Musical Supply, Sweetwater, etc. I'd be very surprised if Turnkey in the UK didn't have rack rails.

[Squashki]

Yep, Rack rails is what I was trying to describe. I'm having trouble finding them in the UK though, and no luck on ebay or turnkey. I guess I'm gonna have to order them from abroad. Thanks for the help.

[noisedude]

Mate, there's loads on ebay. I was looking at them last night as I was fired up by Frederic's latest thread and wanted to have a go. I just typed 'rack' into the main search box, browsed to Musical Instruments --> Pro Audio and there were a load of them. There's a another sub-category called 'DJ/Studio/Pro' or something in some other category of ebay altogether, you should be able to find stuff there too!

[noisedude]

This guy does loads of them:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/2-x-12U-19-FUL...QQcmdZViewItem

His shop:
http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Student-Sta...erLinksQQtZkm?

[SonicAlbert]

You don't want those full hole rack strips though, get the kind with the threads. I've bought a lot of rack rails on eBay, here's the guy I buy them from:

http://stores.ebay.com/DBLITTLEA-W_W...toreviewQQtZkm

Except I just noticed he only ships to USA/Canada. Maybe if you email him and ask nicely he'll ship to you.

Otherwise, try a store like Musician's Friend or Sweetwater, and ask for rack rails made by Middle Atlantic.

[LemonTree]

Originally Posted by SonicAlbert

You don't want those full hole rack strips though, get the kind with the threads. I've bought a lot of rack rails on eBay, here's the guy I buy them from:

http://stores.ebay.com/DBLITTLEA-W_W...toreviewQQtZkm

Except I just noticed he only ships to USA/Canada. Maybe if you email him and ask nicely he'll ship to you.

Otherwise, try a store like Musician's Friend or Sweetwater, and ask for rack rails made by Middle Atlantic.

You DO want the strips with the full holes so you can put your own cage nuts in. The pre drilled ones with the threaded holes usualy strip out then you're screwed (pun intended) If you strip out a cage nut, you replace it in the hole....not replace the full strip.

[SonicAlbert]

It doesn't really matter either way, as both systems work fine.

But I think you'd mostly want the full hole rack if you were planning to build a travelling rack, shipping the rack with gear in it, or have exceptionally heavy equipment to rack. For home studio use, rack rails with threaded holes should work just fine.

I've never ever stripped a threaded rack rail hole in all the years I've used racks, and that's a long time! Studio racks, racks for live gigs, never. I've always found dealing with cage nuts to be a bit of a hassle, and I have a couple live racks with the full hole rack rails.

I've shipped gear and had the rack arrive completely destroyed, smashed, and the gear inside bent out of shape as well. But the rack rails were just fine, the last thing to go!

[Picker]

You'll have to let us know how it goes. I was thinking of building my own studio rack as well. So far, I haven't even gotten to the planning stage, but it is definately on my short list of things to do.

[LemonTree]

sorry Albert, got a 4u solid steel computer chasis here that weighs more than my 11 yearold son and untill recently a 1987 3 U PSU for an allen & Heath...stripped a few myself on them cheap Adam Hall racks. YMMV

[noisedude]

I might wuss out this time and buy a couple of cheap Stagg threaded racks, but I will be noting my experiences with them in order to know what I'll do in the future!!

Adam Hall ............... well ................ let's just their stuff is not exactly 'up-market'.

[tourettes5139]

I built my own rack, and I used pre-threaded holes, and they are holding up fine. I think that they are Middle Atlantic ones, but I'm not sure. They worked out great, though. It's a lot of fun to build your own, and definitely worth it. I made mine out of 3/4" plywood, with an oak face. It looks GREAT after 3 coats of varnish on it. Awesome.

$.02

[Scooter B]

Tou might try Studio Spares in the UK I woudl be suprised if they did not have them.

I built mine as well with a center mixing console and a 10 space rack on the top side screwed into a wooden frame that can be lifted out of my desk while still mounted to the frame. The two lower colums underneath have storage drawers on the left and one large cabinet for a PC tower on the right.

You can see it and more here;

http://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=70931

[SonicAlbert]

Originally Posted by LemonTree

sorry Albert, got a 4u solid steel computer chasis here that weighs more than my 11 yearold son and untill recently a 1987 3 U PSU for an allen & Heath...stripped a few myself on them cheap Adam Hall racks. YMMV

Anything that heavy I'd probably put in rear supports as well, I could definitely see threaded holes getting stripped. But chances are Squashki is just talking about the usual relatively light rack mount units like fx boxes, compressors and such.

I'm not familiar with Adam Hall racks. And I think I'm glad about that based on what you are saying!

[Squashki]

Originally Posted by SonicAlbert

Anything that heavy I'd probably put in rear supports as well, I could definitely see threaded holes getting stripped. But chances are Squashki is just talking about the usual relatively light rack mount units like fx boxes, compressors and such.

I'm not familiar with Adam Hall racks. And I think I'm glad about that based on what you are saying!

Yep, it's going to be for smaller rack equipment.

I'm about to start getting materials etc, does anyone know of any well drawn plans for a rack, preferably a simple one, and where I can find them, I'm sure I've seen some somewhere on here.

Thanks for all the help.

[SonicAlbert]

You really don't need to find a diagram, as racks are the simplest thing in the world to build. If I can do it, anyone can do it! There's just a few measurements to keep in mind.

Each rack space is 1.75 inches high. So if your rack will be 12 rack spaces tall then that's 12 times 1.75, which equals 21 inches. Width is 19 1/8 inches. These are the *inside* measurements.

I always leave a little extra space at the top and bottom of the rack for the gear to breath and a little extra comfort zone so the gear won't be too tight. I'll leave and extra 1/8 inch or so above and below the rack rail. So you'd add that to the 21 inches in the above example about the 12 space rack. The inside height measurement would therefore become 21 1/4 or 21 3/8 inches.

The depth of the rack is whatever you need it to be, but I make my equipment racks 18 inches deep. I also recess the rack rail a bit, like around 1/2 an inch.

This is really all you need to know. When I build racks I just sketch out the design with the measurements on a piece of note paper.

You can view my racks in the attachment below.

As you can see, they are very simple. Nothing fancy, just basically boxes for my gear. But they are very space efficient and were low cost to build.

[LemonTree]

Originally Posted by SonicAlbert

Anything that heavy I'd probably put in rear supports as well, I could definitely see threaded holes getting stripped. But chances are Squashki is just talking about the usual relatively light rack mount units like fx boxes, compressors and such.

I'm not familiar with Adam Hall racks. And I think I'm glad about that based on what you are saying!

Yeah I just built a new desk with top slant effects rack, mixer space, overshelf for the monitors and TFTs and some straight up and down rack space underneath. I have the computer mounted on the underneath rack rails and I have put in wooden supports under it to take the weight

[SonicAlbert]

Do you have a picture of your new desk that you could post as an attachment? I'd be interested to see what you've done.

I've also seen cross bars or brackets in the rear of racks to hold up the weight of heavy gear.

[Track Rat]

There not too hard to build. I made all miy stuff. And if anyone in the St. Louis area would want some rack rails, I have a boat load for pick up only.

[cowboyj]

Originally Posted by Track Rat

There not too hard to build. I made all miy stuff. And if anyone in the St. Louis area would want some rack rails, I have a boat load for pick up only.

If I was in your area I'd totally take you up on that. You sure you wont ship?

Jason

[Track Rat]

Hey, what do you want for free? Shipping too? Sorry bro, pick up only. I also have some rack shelves and some old 2U rack equipment that would be cool for do it yourselfers as kit boxes.

[cowboyj]

I'd at least cover shipping!

Jason

[Track Rat]

Sounds great. Just come over to the house anytime after 5:00 PM and you can pack them right up.