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MMD > Archives > September 1998 > 1998.09.12 > 07Prev  Next


Rack for Storing Music Rolls
By John McClelland

In response to Rick Inzero's response to Karl Tjeil's question about
roll storage: yet another solution.

Denis Condon's solution to storage and quick access to his 7,000 plus
roll collection was to make racks from four 6 foot boards and a bunch
of 1/2 inch wooden dowels.  I noticed this in a photo that he sent me
some time ago and remembered the idea when I recently found a need for
roll storage.

So I measured the largest roll box that I would store (about 4 inches
square) and then calculate how many dowels I could get into the 6 foot
vertical side of the 1 X 4; 14 was a good number.  I then determined
that if I used 2 foot dowels I could store a lot of rolls in a
relatively small footprint.

Next, off to the local lumber yard when I bought 20 foot of 1 x 4 rough
cedar.  The nice folks at the yard cut the pieces to size (without any
extra charge!).  I picked up the dowels inside and some aliphatic resin
glue.  (At last! A use for that cursed stuff, the bane of player men
everywhere).

Clamping the 4 pieces of 1 x 4 x 6 foot together I laid out the
holes for the dowels in the center of the board, drilled them and
sanded the surfaces.  I also had 4 pieces of 1 x 4 x 1 foot cut, to
use as horizontal connectors, top and bottom, between the front and
back assemblies.  I glued the dowels into the holes, waited until they
dried overnight and then attached the connector plates using self
tapping screws.

I moved the whole thing into the house next to my Red Welte.  It
now houses about 75 of these priceless antique rolls.  The design
accommodates the longer Red Welte boxes and is indifferent to mixed
lengths and heights (unless you want to address those issues)

Total assembly time was about 2 hours (excluding glue drying time),
total cost was under $25, total roll capacity is unknown since its
not full, but I would guess somewhere around 125 plus.  Smaller rolls,
such as 88 note boxes, could be stacked 2 high and with a little more
judicious calculating the capacity could probably be upped to around
200 plus rolls.

I did it quick and dirty, but it could be made quite elegant with cloth
sides, different woods and more effort put in to staining and finishing
the rack.

John McClelland


(Message sent Sat 12 Sep 1998, 17:35:23 GMT, from time zone GMT-0700.)

Key Words in Subject:  Music, Rack, Rolls, Storing

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