studio furniture

[pucho812]

who makes good studio furniture these days?

Look for inexpensive wood racks but something better then pressed wood.

Any suggestions? or would going the DIY  route be the way to go?

 

[scott2000]

If you go DIY, this has pretty nice layout packages. I grabbed one of them a while back when I was looking for ideas for a desk....

http://www.thefrankes.com/wp/?page_id=3381/Tutorials/Workstation5/default.aspx

But at the end of the day, it's not too terribly difficult.....and there are plenty of other DIY options.....

My biggest pain was the finishing because I bought cull/ leftovers from the big box stores...... Building was the easy part for me....

 

[pucho812]

looks interesting.  I'll check it out.

 

[metalb00b00]

pucho, if you dislike pressed wood particle board/MDF, you might wanna try panels from dismantled wood pallets.

 

[sodderboy]

Pallet wood is quite flimsy for making the structure for eqpt racks.  You would spend tons of dough on metal bracketing to make it work, plus it would take heapum-big creative skills not to make it rickety and redneck.
Depending on if you need an island or individual racks I would re-consider pressed wood and add an outside shell- lipstick on a pig.  Pallet wood could actually be your friend there.
I have tried painting the plastic covered mdf racks with mild success, but they then get scratched over time and look like what they are.
I think these guys are good quality on a budget.  Solid wood at 3x the price of pressed and not made by asian slaves.
Mike

 

[metalb00b00]

Pallet wood is quite flimsy for making the structure for eqpt racks.  You would spend tons of dough on metal bracketing to make it work, plus it would take heapum-big creative skills not to make it rickety and redneck.
Depending on if you need an island or individual racks I would re-consider pressed wood and add an outside shell- lipstick on a pig.  Pallet wood could actually be your friend there.
I have tried painting the plastic covered mdf racks with mild success, but they then get scratched over time and look like what they are.
I think these guys are good quality on a budget.  Solid wood at 3x the price of pressed and not made by asian slaves.
Mike

If the wood is flimsy, no one will be using it, and it'll cease being assembled into a pallet.

Been too long since I have not been a US citizen, so I don't know what kind of pallet wood you got over there. But in this country, a lot of furnitures is made out of pallet wood or dismantled shipping crates. 10 years of living here, I have not experienced any that is flimsy, rickety, and fitted with ton of metal brackets. Wood working depends on the level of craftsmanship and people will no skill will always find a way to blame it on other things.

 

[sodderboy]

The structure of a pallet is quite different than that of a four-sided box.  Notice that they do not use MDF for pallets either.  Let the material fit the purpose.  The strength of a rack is the integrity of the contact points at the edges.  Better to have 4 contact points than hundreds, yes?
Like I said it could make nice decoration screwed to a MDF'ish foundation, but not as the foundation.
Mike

 

[Gene Pink]

The structure of a pallet...

You guys must be talking about a different kind of pallet than what I am familiar with. Warehouse setting, pallet jacks, forklifts, shedding a trail of splinters everywhere like a dog with mange sheds hair. The wood in these, seems only suitable for pallets and termite food.

Gene

 

[john12ax7]

Inexpensive and quality don't often go together. But used racks tend to depreciate a lot,  so you can often find good racks on Craigslist for not much money.

Another option can be to hire a local carpenter,  the prices can be quite reasonable. Or of course DIY some.

 

[pucho812]

Inexpensive and quality don't often go together. But used racks tend to depreciate a lot,  so you can often find good racks on Craigslist for not much money.

Another option can be to hire a local carpenter,  the prices can be quite reasonable. Or of course DIY some.

that is true, bu trying for some uniformity.

 

[ruffrecords]

If the wood is flimsy, no one will be using it, and it'll cease being assembled into a pallet.

Been too long since I have not been a US citizen, so I don't know what kind of pallet wood you got over there. But in this country, a lot of furnitures is made out of pallet wood or dismantled shipping crates. 10 years of living here, I have not experienced any that is flimsy, rickety, and fitted with ton of metal brackets. Wood working depends on the level of craftsmanship and people will no skill will always find a way to blame it on other things.

Which country are you in? It does not say in your profile.

Cheers

Ian

 

[ruffrecords]

In the UK I got mine here:

https://studioracks.co.uk/

Cheers

Ian

 

[JohnRoberts]

You guys must be talking about a different kind of pallet than what I am familiar with. Warehouse setting, pallet jacks, forklifts, shedding a trail of splinters everywhere like a dog with mange sheds hair. The wood in these, seems only suitable for pallets and termite food.

Gene

+1... pallet wood here is suitably strong for the task, but full of flaws and generally ugly as heck.  Besides termite food they also make nice fires.

Back in the early 80's we were lucky enough to have a small furniture company in the same building and they made us some really nice (oak IIRC) custom racks to use for trade shows.

JR

 

[Gold]

I’ve settled on 80/20 T slot extrusions for making studio furniture and racks. I use High Density Polyethylene Sheet ( cutting board material) for side panels, table tops, etc. These materials are  not dirt cheap. The advantage is everything  can can always be reconfigured or added on to.

It requires very little tooling to make stuff from scratch. If you have the extrusions pre cut all you need is a hex key. A cutoff wheel is all you need if you want to cut the extrusions yourself. They even have online design software if you are into that sort of thing.

 

[pucho812]

yes was looking into cutting board materials

 

[Gold]

To make an all HDPE rack you would need “plastic welding” equipment. The good tools are a bit pricey. There are cheaper tools that look like a hot air gun but I don’t know how well they work. It’s very quick to do plastic welding if you are tooled up. It would require more cutting to put reinforcement ribs on the sheet.

 

[pucho812]

I think we were thinking of two different kind of cutting board.

I was  thinking of butcher block wood  . 

 

[Gold]

Butcher block is very expensive, difficult to work with and very heavy.

 

[pucho812]

Yes but it would avoid the standard press board.  stuff that most companies use

 

[pucho812]

oh and I found this... hmmmm

Nice idea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQt7n3dnvtE