My father did some woodworking and built this to house his stereo equipment back around 1960. But he used angle iron for the rack rails, and he just drilled and tapped holes where he wanted to mount something. But the angle iron was a bit too wide, and some rack equipment would not fit. I took out the angle iron and replaced it with real rack rails. Now I can place stuff anywhere I want it. Also installed a drawer to hold misc audio stuff (cables, turntable accessories, extra rack screws and clip on nuts, and so on). This drawer took longer than it would look like to install, as I didn't have rack rails in the back. So I had to use pieces of wood and screws, and be careful to not block access to other screws I need to get at to adjust the height of the drawer slides and such. Most of the equipment here is only about 30cm deep, and could just mount on the front rails securely.


If you want to build something like this, and have a woodworking shop or have a friend who does, here above is a sketch of the important details and the important dimensions are noted. Others you can vary for your needs.

My father would be 99 years old today, he checked out 20 years ago. But he'd be happy to know if he could that something he built is still in use.

This drawer took longer than it would look like to install, as I didn't have rack rails in the back.

Wouldn't it have been faster and easier to install rear rack rails?

QUOTE: Wouldn't it have been faster and easier to install rear rack rails?

The wood furniture structure wasn't deep enough for rear rails where the drawer designer expected them to be.

The 19-inch rack originated in the 1800s for railroad signaling!
By the 1920s the telephone companies called them Relay Racks.
Still used today for Broadcast and IT! Why change a good idea?

Other than the oddball length, 19 inches = 48.26cm, and each piece of equipment being a multiple of 1.75 inches = 4.445cm, it works well. I wish the USA would make metric our standard (in a sense it already is, in that the English measurements are defined in terms of metric). And nowadays food packages have the English measurements, and all also have the metric equivalent in ()'s. Makes it easier to compare differing package sizes, as I don't have to remember if it's 12 oz to a pound or what (and I was born and grew up in the USA).

Brad could build a rack console like this, and put the Vintage Radio servers in it, in the living room. Though his SO may veto that idea.

It's a bit out of date these days but the 'about' page had photos of what once were the host servers for this site. Due to the price of electricity these days all this equipment is mothballed and the site is on lesser brethren, though obviously still suited to the task.

At the time, all the equipment added together with the weight of the rack we were talking about something like 1,300kg - about ten Hulk Hogans - and well in excess of the SWL of the concrete floor, usually designed for 750kg per square metre.

The centimetre (cm), as a unit of measurement, is rarely used. When boasting about something like the height of a skyscraper, the owner will express the height in metres though the architect will produce the drawings, expressing all measurements in millimetres (mm). When purchasing certain building materials - usually electrical and plumbing fittings, these are also measured in millimetres.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

Nothing says Professional like an equipment rack, I like them!

In 1930's Western Electric movie sound literature they call them "Relay Racks" (they were a division of a phone Co. after all.)