[Rclark]

Looking forward to building this. And thanks again for making me those awesome cables!

[jk@home]

Another cheap diy rack is the famous Ikea Lack Rack, here's a pic of mine when I was running single driver speakers with subs. Now I have the rack hidden away in the LH closet, to open the room up  for my Magnepan MMGs.




Goggle "Ikea Lack Rack Audio" for more info. Check out this thread, scroll down to the reply/receipe from poster Carterham1700:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?htech&1001889380&openflup&11&4

For my current setup, I had a local plastic fabricator make a riser, then I added angle and spikes to finish (along with a Bed, Bath and Beyond cutting board):

[JLM]

No longer available (at least in the U.S.)    but I use an Ikea nightstand of similar construction to the Lack.  It had solid sides, a bottom shelf, and a thinner/adjustable shelf.  I bought two, one serves as a side table and it's adjustable shelf now allows for 4 shelves in my rack.  The nightstand fits 17 inch wide components and comes with roller "feet".  I installed the posts for the rollers to create "spikes" of sorts and can always pop the rollers on later.

Simple, functional, solid, stays low out of the soundstage, easy to assemble, and the best part is cheap ($90 delivered for both and 30 minutes for setup).   

[jk@home]

jk, that looks pretty awsome. I'll have to check the Ikea Lack Rack out. I also like the plexi glass riser you bridged over system. Cool.

Thanks. At the moment, the only source I am using is the digital output of a Squeezebox (in the closet). So it works out great, I have a 2 meter SPDIF coaxial run to the riser, then all the analog cables are as short as possible.

[jk@home]

No longer available (at least in the U.S.)    but I use an Ikea nightstand of similar construction to the Lack.  It had solid sides, a bottom shelf, and a thinner/adjustable shelf.  I bought two, one serves as a side table and it's adjustable shelf now allows for 4 shelves in my rack.  The nightstand fits 17 inch wide components and comes with roller "feet".  I installed the posts for the rollers to create "spikes" of sorts and can always pop the rollers on later.

Simple, functional, solid, stays low out of the soundstage, easy to assemble, and the best part is cheap ($90 delivered for both and 30 minutes for setup).   

Ikea is definitely Cheap and Cheerful . I wish there was a B&M outlet here, I had to mail order.

The only issue I can think of with the Ikea Lack receipe is that the legs used to be solid cored throughout, so it was just a matter of cutting them shorter. The ones I built came with hollow legs except for the top & bottom couple of inches or so.

What I did was use a table saw to cut the bottom off and trimmed down, and then glued those "inserts" into the new shorter legs.

[Thump553]

Very nice looking.

[Rclark]

what do you think of these racks?


http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?accsrack&1305512986&/VTI-audio-rack-BL404-(4-shelve

guy has a lot, and they're not expensive

[Bob in St. Louis]

Great job zman, looks heirloom quality to me. 

Bob

[Rclark]

are you gonna give us a play by play on how to build yours soon?? 


if you don't I think I'll go ahead with one of those racks and just add my own mass or isolators.

[mikeeastman]

Here are some pictures of the rack I just finished.  Got less than $300 in it. 









The rack is made up of angle iron and 1 inch box tubing filled with lead shot and a product called eDead v3 sold by Elemental Designs and used to deaden speaker cabinets and car body parts.  The shelves are mdf with a 3/8 layer of the eDead and lead shot.  With granite on top. 

[JLM]

Nice rack Mike.   

If you can DIY, why not just use pieces of pre-laminated countertops for shelfs/sides with angle brackets?  Lots of laminates to pick from, you can mix and match.  Paint the bottom/inside of the pieces.  I know laminate is not easy to cut (must use sharp/small teeth blades and go slow).

[mikeeastman]

Thanks,   I've worked with  laminate but I don't think it would work as well for isolation as the lead shot and granite, also I prefer the look of stone.

[Phil A]

Great job on the rack Mike!

[ArthurDent]

Nice work Mike, and good thinking on the casters. I'm guessing that it isn't the lightest piece of furniture in the house. 

[sl_1800]

I have been working on my equipment rack for several weeks now and it's finally coming together.  While I won't say it was really "Cheap and Cheerrful", it was fun to build.



















The wood used is quilted maple and cherry, no stain was used just clear shellac.  The shelves were primed with Killz using a texture roller, sanded slightly, then spray painted satin black.  The texture almost looks like leather.

The main frame is assembled with pocket screws and corner braces.  The spikes on each leg are from Parts Express, speaker spikes.

[Bob in St. Louis]

Nice! 
But in all fairness, that's worthy of your own thread, not piggy backing on another guys.
Well done Sir!

Bob

[sl_1800]

Thanks Bob but it wasn't really a cheap build so I hated to start a new thread here for it.

[TomW16]

Very nice rack SL!  And well constructed too.   

[sl_1800]

Thanks TomW16.  I have collected several woodworking tools over the past few years so I had to put most of them to use on this project.