I found it impossible to find any detailed plans on the net for making decent studio desks, furniture and outboard 19" racks.
There are heaps of places to buy pre-made stuff but nothing for the DIY person that includes measurements for things like rack rail spacing, average desk height etc.
I didn't know these things so I presume other beginner builders may not know as well.
I thought maybe Steve could sticky this thread (done - Steve) as all these studios we are building eventually need desks and racks to put our gear on.
Others may have links to plans or sites with plans they can add.
Here's the only one I found after two days of surfing - some plans here are OK but they cost.
http://plans.thefrankes.com/racks/
JohnG
Try this for racks.
http://colomar.com/Shavano/rackcase.html
After reading that page I felt like I understood how racks were put together (not that it's very complicated) and then it was just a matter of taking measurements and a little math and I built my own angled rolling rack without much problem.
matt
The shavano link looks pretty good, except for a slight error at the beginning - standard single unit rack space is 1-3/4", not 1-7/8" as stated... Steve
Wow, what a great link (especially the how-to pix). Thanks for discovering that, John!
Given that the guy went to so much trouble to put all that info up on the web, I think it's definitely worth the 10 bucks to get a set of plans:)
I have to say myself this is a great sticky. I was going to buy an Argosy console. The price was about $2500.00. I kept looking at my studio budget, and every time I looked at that Argosy price, it's like it would turn brownish-red and sound like bacon sizzilin' in a skillet! :lol:
I figured, "there's got to be a better/cheaper way!"
I started looking at pics of different studios and got some good ideas as to what I want to build and how I hope it will look.
When I get to that point I'll share that here.
Good deal John! :)
Here's a link to a post I made at home recording last year documenting the building of my DIY Argosy style rack. I took tons of pictures and halfway down the page I uploaded pdf versions of the Visio documents I created for the rack design. If anyone is interested in the Visio files, I could upload them here.
Hopefully these will help/inspire others to make their own.
Chris
DIY Rack
Here's my finished rack.
I got a furniture part of my day job business to make it for me.
It's stained, varnished MDF and cost $100 including rack rails, labour and materials.
Enjoy!!
I've decided to convert my old computer desk into a decent piece of control room furniture.
1. Add a 4/6 rack space under the desk
2. Add a compartment for my G5
3. A sunken shelf for dual monitors so their less obtrusive
4. Raised "near field" speaker stands with foam pads
And
5. neat cable runs with hooks
You may not be interested but I’ll post some picts when I’m done.\
lil
Anyone who got good links to general wood working resources with tips like "how to get two pieces of wood to stick together" and advices like "do not cut of your fingers"? (Ok, maybe not that dumbed down, but you get the picture.)
I'm currently trying to remember what I learned in wood shop fifteen odd years ago and have watched my fair share of Room Service (a swedish interior design tv-show) to feel knowable about a construction technique or two. It would be great to discover new construction techniques and ideas when it comes to building my own studio furniture as well as freshing up some wood working basics.
Hey.
Here are the dimensions and layout for a small 12U rack I made recently. Note that this is kindof shallow compared to a lot of racks. For example, a typical 4U computer case will stick out a bit at the back. I made it to fit my sound card, pach bay, preamps, reference amp etc, which aren't particularly deep (buying all this gear to put in is a slow work in progress though)!
This is what it looks like, note that there is more of a slope on the front edge than this photo really shows:
For rack strips, cage nuts, rack panels, connectors etc try Cliff Electronics They deliver pretty much next-day to anywhere in Australia. Great service, and they supply the entire Penn-Elcom catalog as well as a bunch of their own manufactured stuff.
Here's some pics of the desk I recently designed. I added several components to show you how things could be laid out. The boxes on the bottom and the speaker stands are all 19.125" wide to support rack equipment.
