For years now, there’s been a couple of 19″ modules drifting through my house. For the greater part of that time I’ve been thinking about building my own rack. Printed scematics, trolling the interwebs for instructions, and so on.

About four years ago I ran into an article about the Lack Rack, a DIY solution where a low cost Ikea coffee table is transformed into a 19″ rack using no more than a drill.
I picked up a discarded Lack from the street, hoping to have a no cost 19″ rack. This is when I found out that the Lack has gone through several iterations, and recent ones are pretty useless. I picked up a recent one.

I then found out about a slightly costlier —but still no-budget— solution: The same company has a nightstand called the Rast, which has exactly the right size, is made of actual wood, about the cost of a Lack and is only missing a mounting option.
I picked one up —from the store, not the street— ordered some 6U rails, nuts and bolts, and got to work. In half an hour I got me a functional rack. Wooo!

Rast rack

From top to bottom:

• Akai MP30P MIDI-patchbay
• Waldorf Pulse (zippering horribly, in need of repair. Boo!)
• Yamaha TX-81Z
• Korg Electribe EA-1 (obviously not mounted)

On top of the whole affair sits a Boss spring reverb.