# Audiophile audio rack



## difalkner (Nov 27, 2011)

Starting a new project for a serious audiophile with some serious equipment. His McIntosh amp alone weighs 125 lbs.! The dimensions alone make this rack impressive; everything is 8/4 and the shelves are 23" deep, 52" wide, and the unit is 31" high. Each shelf will weigh about 70 lbs. 

The top shelf is Curly Maple and the middle and bottom shelves are Northern Hard Rock Maple. These will be banded with Curly Maple so from the front you'll see Curly Maple shelves. But since the middle and bottom shelves will be covered with gear there was no need for these to be the much more expensive Curly Maple.

The legs are about 2" x 3" and are Purpleheart. I'll finish the piece in Nitrocellulose lacquer. 

While there's no rush on completing this piece I do want to stay on it as much as possible but as other orders come in I'll put this aside. For instance, we got two separate orders for 18" Longworth chucks today so I'll move all of this out and cut the chucks tomorrow, then move all of this back in to begin planing and jointing shelves. 

When the shelves are glued I'll take them to my friend's cabinet shop and run them through their wide belt sander. Our SuperMax 19-38 will work but it will be so much easier to do it on their wide belt sander.

As you can see, just the lumber alone overwhelms our little shop and when it comes to assembling this I'll have to do it in the house because I don't have room in the shop to put it together. 😉

Preliminary design -









One shelf, basically, prior to jointing -









All the lumber for the project -









Curly Maple close up shots -


















More photos and updates as I work through this project. Enjoy!
David


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## homestd (Aug 24, 2018)

Love that curly maple. One of my first decent guitars was curly maple back, sides and neck.


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## difalkner (Nov 27, 2011)

It may not seem like much progress but I have now cut to length and planed all of the Hard Rock Maple, straight lined the edges of all boards on the tablesaw, and run every edge on the jointer. These boards are heavy and I'm worn out!! LOL!

Running the Curly Maple on the jointer was a bit iffy since I have straight blades but they are razor sharp and I took very light passes. The edges came out very clean with very minor tear out in a couple of places but they're in the middle of the edge so it's not going to be an issue. I considered getting a Shelix head for the jointer - PM 54A - but since this worked I'll do that upgrade later (maybe).

I have another project I need to move to this afternoon and that may prevent me from gluing these boards today to get the 23" width but they're ready for that step.



















More later!
David


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## difalkner (Nov 27, 2011)

Minor update on this audio rack; turns out the straight knives on my jointer were not giving me the clean edge I thought I was getting on the Curly Maple. When I moved the boards into different light and looked at them closer I saw the tear out in a few places. I made some changes and ran them again but with the same results.

So, today I ordered a Shelix cutterhead for my PM54A jointer. For now this project is waiting on the new cutterhead. I have wanted one for a while and never wanted to spend the money but this project is worthy of an equipment change. Besides, any project that requires the purchase of a new tool is a good project - right!!



















David


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## John Smith_inFL (Jul 4, 2018)

wow - that is going to be a monster !!

.


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## difalkner (Nov 27, 2011)

The finished shelf/rack unit will weigh in at about 240 - 250 lbs. Stout!

David


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## sanchez (Feb 18, 2010)

That's some nice maple! Thanks for posting the progress pictures.


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## enzobindo (Jan 2, 2018)

It's going to be awesome. Can't wait to see the finished photos. Certainly hernia-worthy when it comes time to move it.


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## difalkner (Nov 27, 2011)

Ok, I'm back on the audio rack after installing the Shelix cutterhead in my jointer over the weekend. Today I cleaned up the edges on the three Curly Maple boards, one pass each. Because I bought the cutterhead with bearings installed and 15 extra knives the cost with shipping was $400 and it took about five weeks to arrive (backordered). So that's about $67 per pass but wow do the edges look good! 😁

Here are the chipped edges -









And the edges I just cut today with the new Shelix cutterhead -









David


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## John Smith_inFL (Jul 4, 2018)

since Barnum & Bailey has closed, there are two gorillas looking for work.
maybe they can haul that thing around for you when you start putting it together.

.


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## Bernie_72 (Aug 9, 2020)

That's some gorgeous wood there David! Looks like your new cutterhead did a nice job. 

Looking forward to seeing more updates on this project!


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## Blacklions (Oct 2, 2020)

Hi David. Found the "Project Showcase" you mentioned. That's quite the project your working on. Beautiful wood. Hope you have some strong help to get moved. Anxious to see your cutter in action.


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## difalkner (Nov 27, 2011)

I may make a video of the entire build once this is complete, not sure, video production takes a while. 😉

Finally got to a point where I could begin joining the boards for the shelves and started with the Hard Rock Maple. I'll save the much more expensive Curly Maple for the last in case I learn something new when I join these boards. 

Because these are heavy and the edges so crisp they're sharp I decided to do one joint at a time rather than attempt gluing all three boards at once. That turned out to be a good move because doing just one joint is about all the open time I have for TB I, probably could have switched to TB III to get more open time but didn't want to do that.

I used biscuits for making certain everything stays aligned, not for strength, and it worked well for this application.





























David


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## difalkner (Nov 27, 2011)

Loaded the three shelves, two Hard Rock Maple and one Curly Maple, and headed 10 minutes away to my friend’s cabinet shop. They have a 24” spiral head planer and 36” wide belt sander.

It still took an hour to plane and sand these heavy boards but it would have taken days per board in my shop.




























David


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## difalkner (Nov 27, 2011)

It has been ages since I've posted about this project but it is now finished and delivered. There were many delays due to other contracts and jobs with hard deadlines so this got set aside many times (this one had no deadline). Even though it is completed and delivered I'll still post the steps to build and finished photos at the customer's house. And you're not going to believe how high-end his audio system is - amazing!

Laying out the Purpleheart legs for cutting on the CNC. I don't have a flat bottom blade for the table saw and since I have the CNC it just made sense to use that to ensure all the cuts were uniform.








Here are the toolpath profiles for the cuts I made on the CNC - 
















And the setup on the CNC to prevent blowout when the bit cut through - 








Here are the five legs after cutting on the CNC and beveling the top and bottom surfaces on the table saw - 








More in a bit...


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## GeorgeC (Jul 30, 2008)

Many in the audio community still considers those old tube type Macs to be the best audio equipment ever.. The amplifiers are certainly heavy because huge transformers. If Mac rated the amp at 60 watts per channel it was 60 
RMS watts.

I do not see where the rest of the equipment would be so heavy as to require a stand like is being built.

George


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## Mud (Feb 5, 2021)

Cool project. Very nice curly maple. Continued luck with this project.


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## difalkner (Nov 27, 2011)

Test fit assembly - 








Drill press guide stand for drilling adjustable feet pockets - 








Drilling for adjustable feet - 








Legs ready for adjustable feet - 








Curly Maple edge on middle shelf - 








Testing for best leg location - 








Flip stands for spraying second side of shelves - you can see these in action here








Threaded inserts in place - 








More later -


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## difalkner (Nov 27, 2011)

Getting the threaded inserts into this really hard Maple proved to be very difficult. I couldn't use the tool they make but had to use a bolt with a couple of jam nuts and drove the inserts in with my air operated Ingersoll Rand 1/2" impact driver. I tried a ratchet, 3/8" impact driver, cordless drill, and none of them worked well at all. I did my tests in end grain Walnut for something similar knowing that the Maple was much harder and figured if I could make it work in the Walnut then I might have a chance in the Maple. Again, if you want to see video of this you can see it here on Instagram.

Here are all the tools I tried to use for the threaded inserts - 








Testing legs bolted to top shelf - 








Assembling the shelf for the first time (no room in the shop, have to use the kitchen) - 








I came up with a drying rack for storing the shelves after they were sprayed because I could no longer stand them on end once they had finish on them - 








Spraying the legs; I made no attempt to fill the pores because I preferred the look with pores showing - 








Spraying shelves - 








Spraying second side with flip stands in place - 








Spraying middle shelf - 








More to come -


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## John Smith_inFL (Jul 4, 2018)

I'm trying to think that if the word "behemoth" is adequate. that thing is a monster !!
well done !! that is some beautiful wood.


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## difalkner (Nov 27, 2011)

Thanks, John! It actually came out a few pounds lighter than I originally predicted. It weighs right at 200 lbs. so it's definitely not a flyweight!


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## difalkner (Nov 27, 2011)

GeorgeC said:


> Many in the audio community still considers those old tube type Macs to be the best audio equipment ever


I don't know if he bought it used but he's only had it about 3 years, so if he bought it new then it's not very old at all. My receiver, not even close to this class of gear, is a 2001 and weighs about 55 lbs. and I thought it was heavy.


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## BigJim (Sep 2, 2008)

That is some awesome wood, and your finish is perfect. I agree with John that is one very well built unit.


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## difalkner (Nov 27, 2011)

Thanks, Jim! Yes, the wood is amazing and I just love working with Curly Maple. The finish is new to me - Sherwin Williams Sher-Wood Hi-Bild Lacquer. This stuff cures so quickly and flows out so smoothly.

Here are the shelves in the drying rack in my 'box room' where all my shipping supplies and photography gear resides. The drying rack allowed me a way to store the shelves for the finish to cure and yet take up very little room while being out of our way - 








The finished legs; I love the sapwood in that one leg! 








This is his audio room before the rack was assembled and I have to say it sounds simply amazing. His cables are pure silver and cost over a grand each! 








Finished Curly Maple top shelf, gorgeous curl in this! 
















The assembled rack and he chose to have the sapwood showing on the front right leg (that's what I was hoping for) - 
























He said it will take a couple of weeks for him to have time to get all the gear on the shelves and get it moved back into place. Assuming he takes a good enough photo I'll post it here.

Thanks for checking out this build!


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## BigJim (Sep 2, 2008)

Really beautiful David, he does have some heavy duty equipment. It sure is going to look good in there.


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## Tool Agnostic (Aug 13, 2017)

That's a stunning, beautifully crafted project. 

If the customer's furnace breaks, the fallback is to turn on the audio equipment. That's why the audio rack is open on all sides.


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## difalkner (Nov 27, 2011)

Thank you, sir! It was actually a fun project even though I had to take the shelves to another shop for planing/sanding. I prefer to do all the work here in my shop.

I didn't get near the McIntosh amp but yes, I'm sure it puts out some heat! I know he let the entire system warm up for about 7-8 minutes before playing anything for us, though.


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## Bob Bengal (Jan 2, 2021)

difalkner said:


> Getting the threaded inserts into this really hard Maple proved to be very difficult.


Would drilling the holes a 1/64th or so larger be an option?


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## difalkner (Nov 27, 2011)

Bob Bengal said:


> Would drilling the holes a 1/64th or so larger be an option?


I actually drilled them 1/2" and it was too tight. So I used 17/32" because I had one but it was too loose. So I had to order a 33/64" which is what they recommended, Good idea, though, but it didn't work.


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## difalkner (Nov 27, 2011)

As promised, here are a couple of photos of the completed audio rack with gear in place -


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