The Pimp-My-Rack show

[Victor Alexandrov]

I realized that I had done too much customization on my crappy rack so I figured I have to brag about it for everyone to see.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Pimp-My-Rack show, hosted by yours truly. I'd like to tell a tale of madness, mayhem, metal, and power tools.

Once upon a time, I bought a bunch of rack components from the crappy chinese brand Stagg:


And since Stagg doesn't such thing, I also got four vertical pipe clamps from Gibraltar:


Which had to be secured on pipes with two diametral holes slightly smaller than the corresponding bolts so that they can thread in:


Attachments are now fitted securely:


The racks are basically two single sided units, one of which I cut in half and achieved a 3 sided system:


Then I decided to shorten the horizontal legs, because a 3 sided structure is stable enough as is:


With the pipe leftovers I decided to extend the horizontal sides using this ingenious Tama clamp:



T-leg clamps didn't have grooves for a memory lock, so I little filing was needed:

[Victor Alexandrov]

I have always hated the big ugly T-nuts which come with rack clamps, so I replaced them with hex nuts everywhere except for the 6 points where the rack disassembles:


I also amassed a nice collection of memory locks:
for the multiclamps

for the vertical posts

for the boom arms


and for the starcasts

[Victor Alexandrov]

Combining several parts, I developed a neat little Tama accessory arm to support my main and remote hihats, coming from this:

to this:

and finally this:

Which also yielded an always useful cymbal attachment as a bonus

Now the two hihats could be clamped to the rack:



Back to the multiclamps, I noticed that the hexnuts I replaced the T-nuts with are a little too big, and at the same time, the hexnuts on the multi- side are smaller, so I swapped them:



Then I realized how much I hate the Stagg wingnuts, so I opened my vast spare parts archive and dug up enough Tama wingnuts to replace them on every clamp:

[Victor Alexandrov]

After some time I decided to pull out Operation No Legs and remove all the remaining tripods off my kit, starting from the snare stand. I got the newer version of the Gibraltar vertical post:


Replaced the small *** screws with proper bolts:


And mounted it on a piece of pipe drilling two diametral holes:


Effectively making my own version of the Tama snare basket:


And mounted it on the ever expanding rack:


Next up was the hihat which was already clamped to the rack so removal of its legs didn't change the structure much:


Back to the clamps, I wanted to change all the remaining T-nuts (on the right angle clamps) with Tama wingnuts so I found thick *** brass washers and did so:


So the last remaining Stagg wingnuts were on the leg T-clamps:


And because the legs were already shortened, they could fit in a hardware bag without dismantling, so I just replaced them with hexnuts:

[Victor Alexandrov]

And this is where it gets brutal...

After replacing the wingnuts on right-angle clamps, I saw that the corresponding threaded rods are too short:


And on the other side of the right-angle clamps, the hexnuts are too deep:


so I found a parts donor - a cheap Stagg multiclamp (actually 4 of them):


Which gave me longer threaded rods:


And smaller hexnuts:


As a result, the wingnuts already use all their threading:


And the backside is more elegant:

[Victor Alexandrov]

Then I got my sights on the rack multiclamps, which have always driven me nuts because they loosen and rattle when thrown in the hardware bag, so I decided to lose one of the rods and replace it with a tube with inner thread, effectively rendering the clamp not multi-anymore, but fitted only for receiving 3/4" tubes.

In other words, from this:


To this:


The operation was difficult, curse worthy, and involved a vise, power drill, bad words, file, and more bad words.

[Victor Alexandrov]

To finish the whole let's-change-every-wingnut-with-a-Tama-one madness, I attacked the Gibraltar vertical posts which originally had 6mm bolts and respectively wingnuts, so I had to redrill, retap, and replace the bolts in order to put on Tama 8mm wingnuts.

In other words, from this:


To this:


The newer one on the snare basket was easy:


Since all the rack clamps were strictly 3/4" now, I had to refine the main hihat holding arm a bit:

[Victor Alexandrov]

And finally, after realizing that drilling rivets is not that hard, I made one final improvement to every clamp - replaced the threaded rod on every non-moving instance with a threaded tube and bolt, classic Tama rack clamp style, while turning every clamp upside down so that the tube/bolt is on top:



Right angle clamps also got upgraded and rotated:



I fired up the angle grinder and shortened all the protruding threaded rods so that they wont stick out of the wingnuts:

[Victor Alexandrov]

And this is it!

The rack now looks very sleek and neat, has steel pins everywhere instead of crappy aluminium rivets. All the places that are not to be touched, are secured with allen bolts, and all the wingnuts are Tama. And there are no unnecessary parts sticking out and getting in the way when you tear the construction down and toss it in the hardware bag.

I can't think of anything on this rack that hasn't been already altered, so I can't say what could I do next.

I also think I completely lost it.

[Stranjluv101]

very nice work man. You truly have a unique setup there man.

After 15 years of being a rack guy, I just recently decided to go back to stands.

Great work!

[megahertz]

Congrats man:
You are undoubtedly crazy, talented, and by far my new favorite person on the internet!
Gotta love people with OCD.
Awesome work, and a beautiful kit! (saw in your signature)
I'd love to see a picture of the whole thing, after the mods (meaning without the tripods, I guess).

If you're looking for your next project, and willing to take on some limitations to the possibilities of your future setups -
Consider shortening the parts of the boom arms that are unused ;-) - but it can't be undone.

Absolutely awesome.

[Artisan]

Wow! What an epic tale. I loved how many pictures you used to show us too; thanks! Props to you sir. I'd also love to see the final setup.

[Josh Conover]

This was a fun read! I'm pretty OCD about my hardware as well. I'm down for anything I can do to make it custom or more functional. How did you install those rivets? I mean, what tools are required?

[nik12]

Of everyone here who claims to be OCD with their kit and/or gear, I fear you may actually have an OCD with regards to you gear.

Made for an interesting read though! Great work!

[Victor Alexandrov]

Thanks for the kind words everybody! I don't consider myself OCD at all, I just love tinkering and challenging myself with new stuff, as it probably shows.

I actually replaced all the rivets with spring pins like these:


It's quite easy to do - you drill out one side of the rivet with same size drill bit (in my case - 4mm) and hammer the rivet out. Then you put the spring pin and gradually insert it, clamping it with a big enough vise.

I snapped some full kit pics with the finished rack, you can check them out here.