Today I took two 45U aluminum frame racks, cut them down to 32U, modified the rails so I could flip the feet inward, hacked up some of the leftover rail to fit between the two racks to make a single very shallow (16.5" deep) 4-post rack and then drilled and tapped some holes in the bottom and installed fine floor casters.

Thought of this thread and took some pictures if anyone is interested...

awesome ideas, i really like Bassales solution. im glad to hear this isnt as uncommon as i had assumed it was.

Paul, Please post the pics, im curious. As for the doors it would require a modification to the cabinet so thats a no go. The way the cabinet is positioned is going to be a real bugger so i think im going bassales cabinet solution.

I do have a chop saw, dont know why i didnt think of it...this industry has turned my brain to mush ;)

So will a few adult beverages. LOL. :)

Here's a quick run down on today's rack modification:

Started with two standard 45U aluminum 2-post relay racks that look like this:


Here they are both laid out an unboxed:


First I wanted to flip the feet inward to decrease the depth of the rack.  To do this, I had to cut a radius in the bottom of all four rails so the feet would fit.  Used a die grinder to make quick work of this:


A little clean-up with the file and it's a good fit.  You can see here how the rack rail had to be trimmed to allow clearance with the foot flipped around to match the radius on the inside of the foot:


Now it's on to cutting the rails which is what everyone has been swapping ideas about.  I cut them individually using my jig saw and a speed square.  Easy enough to get them within 1/16".  All four cut in less than 5 minutes.  I think it takes longer to measure and tape them off than it does to actually cut them.

I mounted casters into the corners of the feet that were flipped inward.  This is nice thick aluminum so instead of messing around with nuts and washers, I just drilled and tapped the holes to accept bolts:


Here's one of the threaded holes:


Next I used some of the extra rack rail and cut id down to attach the two racks together.  Tapped and threaded the holes again for the larger bolts:


This shows the two bolts coming up through the bottom of the foot and threading into the short rack rail that was used to join the two racks together:


The top was connected in a similar fashion using the left over top brace bars.  These were tapped and threaded too:


Here's with the top bar bolted in place:


Rack from the front:


Rack from the side (only 16.5" deep):


Detail of the caster and modified rack rail after a bit of touch-up paint:


All together it only took 2.5hrs starting with unboxing and ending after cleanup.  Total of 12 cuts, a little grinding and 28 drill/tap for bolts.

Great instructional SB Smarthomes.

Thanks for taking the time to post the pics. I will tuck that away in my brain for the future.

Paul, you should definitely post that at CT as a how-to. Thanks so much!

Nice howto. I wish everyone (including me) would document things like this.