DIY rack questions (1 Viewer)

[Neil Joseph]

I was thinking of building a rack but use marble for the shelves, threaded rod as the posts and PVC tubing to hide the threaded rod. Has anyone made a rack using marble? I have not checked the cost yet but is this unreasonable, or too heavy, or whatever else?

Thanks,

 

[John Chevalier]

wow, that would be an awesome sight to see.

 

[Clay Autery]

Neil,
I've done some stone work... I don't know what your budget is, but real marble runs from expensive to INSANE in pricing depending on whether you get the more "common" varieties or the super-cool rarer varieties.
Besides just the base material cost, you will have to come up with some dough for cutting, beveling, boring the holes, polishing, or anything else you want done... unless you REALLY have a big budget and can afford to buy some nice stone-working tools.... and take the risk of losing a whole piece of marble due to a crack or misplaced cut/hole....
Marble would be REALLY nice looking... I love it for counter-tops and floors... It'd be great IMHO for a "flexi" too, but spending that kind of money, I would cover the all-thread with nice, seamless, aluminum tubing (after determining the shelf separations....
The other option for th all-thread (which would be really cool), would be to have the all-thread chemically stripped of all the zinc (maybe McMaster Carr has bare steel), and THEN take it to either a good gunsmith or a metal plating shop and have either 1) gun bluing, 2) powder coating, or 3) any of another dozen or so killer coatings applied (stealing the idea form the pistol nuts... of which I am one, who have their slides, etc coated).
If you prepped the rod carefully (meaning running them through a NEW die (BOTH WAYS) to clean the threads up, then they would look SWEET and the coating shouldn't wear off with normal use. You could coat the other hardware too...
Let me know if you are really going to go this way and I'll send you some links that you might want...
PS - Heavy? Oh yeah... very. BUT, it won't make any real difference if you use the correct type and number of transfers on the bottom shelf... They have a 44 ton vault door at Cheyenne Mountain on hinges with no roller support, and you can close it with one hand... proper engineering can overcome most obstacles...

 

[Patrick Sun]

Or just use MDF with marble laminate.

 

[Clay Autery]

Here's a tip for using marble laminate over MDF to help minimize the visible line at the edges:

Choose your laminate color carefully in combination with your cement color... For instance, WilsonArt H20 will leave a narrow WHITE line (thickness dependent on how many coats of cement are at the edges... Fortunately, I used black laminate and the black Sharpie marker effectively dyed the laminate profile and to a lesser extent the white glue line...

Frankly, if I go laminate again, I am going to do a test on the WilsonArt glue... I am going to take a quart or so of the H2O to my local paint shop and have them add pigment to it in an attempt to color match as closely as possible to the laminate color... Don't think the small amount of required pigment should affect the bonding strength significantly...

Wonder if they actually have pigmented glues?

 

[Bryan Michael]

granet is about 500-1000 for a 2x4 sheet was going to do my tv stand in that till i got my big screen then the cost went to 1-2k

 

[Bill_Weinreich]

Neil,
Thought about doing a similar thing myself. After about a half dozen phone calls, only one replied to me with a price of the marble. $1600 for 6 18"x24" pieces (cut, drilled, and polished on top and edges). Beyond that, the weight was another huge factor. I fugured about 50lbs or so per shelf. Add in about another 50lbs for the 2" aluminmum rod I was using and that added up to forget it. I opted out with faux marble finish over MDF. Looks convincing enough.
If you still want real marble, contact some marble installers in the area. They can give you a better idea of which type of marble will hold up best. (some they claimed were too soft and would scratch easy).
Here are some pics of mine:
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Good luck with whatever you decide.
Bill

 

[Neil Joseph]

That looks like the way I would want to go then. $1600 for a few sheets. Hmmm

 

[Bryan Michael]

i would have put the recever at the botom and the cd player at the top near the dvd player usaly you want to put copponets in an axesable place loke dvd players and cd players that you use more and thing like amps and eq power condishoners at the top and botom igf you have a tall rack if not just at the botom?

 

[Neil Joseph]

What do you guys use at the base, if anything, to isolate the unit from vibrations in the ground?

 

[Stephen Hopkins]

I recently did some speaker stands w/ the base and top pieces made of 3/4" mdf, then covered in Black Marble contact paper. It sounds cheap (which it was, 4 stands cost less than $50 in total materials) but it looks really convincing. I probably could have done an even better job if i'd cut the contact paper to fit then put it on, instead of cutting it as i laid it. Here are som pics. I'm planning on doing a rack to match sometime soon.
http://www.geocities.com/nehpets4627/DSC00012.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/nehpets4627/DSC00013.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/nehpets4627/Picture001.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/nehpets4627/Picture002.jpg

 

[Stephen Hopkins]

Geocities is stupid and won't let me outside link to my pictures, so here's some alternative links:
http://link.freepichosting.com/image.cgi/6156/0.jpg
http://link.freepichosting.com/image.cgi/6156/1.jpg
http://link.freepichosting.com/image.cgi/6156/2.jpg
http://link.freepichosting.com/image.cgi/6156/3.jpg

 

[BryanZ]

Another marble look option:
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...threadid=26694
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