Garage Storage

My latest creation, a custom built garage storage.  I helped build this for a friend of mine.  It's nearly finished but I'll see if I can update the pics when it is completely finished.

I designed this using google SketchUp.

One side hosts the washing machine and the cloths dryer. The other side, at the bottom has some narrow storage next to what will become a shoe rack.  On top there is some bigger storage foreseen, at this time it's still missing some boards though. To maximize the storage space, I indented the closet to 'embed' the light switches.

I choose to use multiplex (18mm thick) as it would make the whole storage solution much sturdier and stronger than using MDF.

Hopefully my next post will be about something non-wood shop related or people start thinking I'm a carpenter or something similar.

DIY 19" server rack

A while ago I purchased Sun Fire V480. As this is a 19" mountable server case, I went looking online for cheap (preferably Sun microsystems) 19"server cabinets/racks. However this search remained unfruitfull.  Either the cabinets or racks were too big to handle or too expensive to buy or ship. So I decided to make one myself.

I set out to make this rack in wood which is cheap and lightweight.  After reading an article in Make magazine I even attempted to not use any metal material. After creating the sides the ol'fashioned way I eventually decided that using 'modern' materials like vises and angle  irons would be much quicker and productive :-)

So after constructing the rack I attached 2 12U rack strips I bought via e-bay to the rack.  As a test I mounted a network switch in my home made rack.

I added some wheels to the rack, to make it more movable.  Afterwards I slid in the Sun Fire V480 an an empty rack mountable case (in the future I'll move the contents of my desktop to this case).

Before mounting the wheels I added two  beams to the rack to prevent it from tipping forward too much,making it safer for me to slide out a server.