Well, some of the gear is big... in the last picture, you can see what I mean. Four recorders, that's 16U, the scsi hot swap enclosure for the four recorders is also 4U, the alesis Amp is 2U, the dual CD drive is 2U... I've already filled 24U of 30U in 15 minutes.
Those of us that like older gear tend to find that its larger. I have a Korg Poly800 rackmount (old, cheese analog synth) that takes 6U plus another 1U for the cable connections they put on the TOP of the unit instead of the back!
Thanks guys... but its uglier than in the pictures, its a real hack-job, but I posted it anyway to show everyone that you guys who want to make racks can do it - wood, screws, glue and some rack rails.
I'm big on DIY if you haven't noticed
As far as the weather goes, it wasn't snowing the day I cut up the pieces outside, but it was the day before. I shoveled, took a hot shower, then built this 3-bay rack. Wore two sweatshirts too, since it was low 30's outside.