Building my Own Rack?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Farno
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Farno

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Yeah...I built all my racks and console/gear furniture for my studio. I wanted a custom fit for the space that I had, and I also wanted a specific layout/look. I went for 4 slanted-face racks that have 16 spaces each. I also added three straight 12-space racks, two which sit on top of two of the slanted racks.
Lots of ready-made slant-straight combinations put the slanted section on top and the straight section below...but that's kinda dumb, since it makes it harder to see the gear below in the straight section. I think they mainly do it becuase it's easier to build the that way (and cheaper). You need a deeper rack box when doing the slant on the bottom with the straight section on top....but it's much more ergonomic, and looks cooler IMO. :)
(You can see how they look in my studio pics.)

Anyway...a single rack box isn't that hard to make if you are handy with wood-n-saws...etc. Measure the width 3 times!!! It has to be just right for the 19" gear to fit. I recessed my rails about 1.5" so the knobs of the gear wouldn't stick out to much beyond the rack face.
 
There are some plans on the net somewhere (and I think they're here if you search for them) from a guy who built his own racks. They looked great from what I remember, too.
 
I've built a few of my own, and I'll most likely never buy anything rack related again. The few that I've built were for specific installations so the size was determined by the space available, not by the gear that I needed to house, so I ended up with more rack space than I needed. That'll leave some room to expand in the future. I also used wooden "rails", 2x1s about 1/4 from the edge so when you mount your gear it's recessed a bit, you could go 1/2 or 3/4 if you're worried about knobs and stuff sticking out. The downside the using wooden rails is there is no pre-drilled spaces to screw your gear in and if you want spaces between pieces you have to measure carefully so everything is even, you're also stuck with securing your gear with wood screws, but you can find some really cool stuff these days. The inside, side to side dimensions should be approx. 19 inches to accomodate most uniform rack gear.
 
I believe I got the 6 rack space. I only have 3 pieces of rack gear, so I didnt need that much. Plus it left some storage space under my gear
 
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